Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/60

46 cheaper, as, for instance, between the years 1828 and 1836, when the sum paid for bonding was only two dollars per vessel, whether the number of passengers was great or small. In some cases, however, it was found to be very convenient to the passenger-carriers, and advantageous to the city, to commute for alien passengers instead of requiring bonds, or, in other words, to accept a specific sum of no less than one and no more than ten dollars for each, and to waive the execution of bonds. For this reason, the Corporation of the city of New York, in 1839, passed an amendment to the Passenger Act, which authorized the Mayor to commute. Consequently, when the agent or master desired to commute, the Commissioners of the Almshouse directed an examination of the passengers, and reported their condition, when the Mayor fixed and received the commutation, and the master was discharged from all liability. While the State law required that bonds should be given, the Corporation ordinance merely conferred authority on the Mayor to commute in such cases, and in such manner, as might be mutually agreed upon, the right of bonding being reserved specially to the master.

Thus the city did not gain much, and the old abuses were continued with the same impunity. In fact, the entire business became a private traffic between a set of low and subordinate city officials, on the one hand, and a band of greedy and unscrupulous brokers, on the other. It was a sort of legalized robbery, the headquarters of which was at the City Hall.

An ordinance of the city prescribed that the Clerk of the Common Council should receive all sums paid for commutation by alien passengers, account monthly for them, and thereupon pay over the money received by him to the Chamberlain of the city. But there never has been any check upon, or system of examination of, the accounts of the Clerk of the Common Council, and of receipts of such moneys, either to detect dishonest practices or to correct unintentional error.

It seems that, from the first day of the application of the Passenger Act of 1824 down to 1842, all the moneys for commuted alien passengers were received by a certain John Ahern, a defaulter to the city in a very large amount, who first was private clerk to General Morton, the Clerk of the Common Council or a