Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/38

24 measured 1,000 tons and had a steerage of only 500 tons, could nevertheless take steerage passengers for the whole tonnage, that is, 400 instead of 200. Nothing was said about the height of the steerage. It must always be borne in mind that the construction of ships for the express purpose of carrying passengers only began about the year 1830; that up to that time all space which could not be used for shipping merchandise was temporarily arranged for steerage passengers; that often at the last moment, a few days before going to sea, the superfluous room was sold to an agent, and that in those days a steerage five feet high was considered fully sufficient for making two tiers of beds along their sides. And the hole beneath this hole was called orlop-deck, and likewise used for the transport of passengers.

From this the nature of the atmosphere in the steerage of an emigrant ship can readily be imagined without a minute description. We have only to consider that the room was rarely more than six feet high, had no other aperture for the admission of fresh air than the hatches, which, during the night and bad weather, were generally closed, was crowded with passengers, of whom the greater portion were strangers to the virtue of cleanliness, and many of them down with sea-sickness or other equally loathsome diseases. What with the miasma of a damp hold, the excretions and exhalations from the bodies of the individuals thus confined, and the emanations from other and more offensive matter, an atmosphere was created which acted like poison on those who had to breathe it, and engendered ship-fever in a more or less violent degree.

The health of the passengers was further impaired by another evil which prevailed on board of all emigrant ships up to a comparatively recent time—the emigrants were expected to provide themselves with food, and to cook it as best they could. The Bremen authorities were the first which, about 1830, required masters of ships to furnish cooked provisions for their passengers. It was at the furthest only a few years before the passage of the so-called Passenger Act of March 3, 1855, by Congress, that the Havre and Liverpool vessels included the fare and cooking in the prices of their passage.

The consequences of this vicious arrangement to those poor