Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/73

Rh The extreme heat of the summer, and the want of cleanliness, neglect of ventilation, and poor diet at this hospital, induced the Mayor to summon the Board of Health. A committee of that body examined the establishment, and reported strongly in favor of remedying the evils connected with these private hospitals and poor-houses, and, by a change in the law, urged the propriety of confiding in the city authorities the charge of the sick and destitute emigrants.

"The system now existing," says the report of Alderman Purser, from which we have quoted the above, "is disgraceful to the city, and unparalleled in Europe. The municipal authorities are divested actually of the power of investigating and relieving cases of severe suffering and destitution. A ship arrives in our port with five hundred emigrants; a broker, irresponsible in every point of view, after examination, agrees to assume the responsibility of supporting those that may become chargeable within two years, at the rate of forty or fifty cents a head. Should any apply, as thousands do, annually, to the Almshouse Commissioners for relief, they are referred, however emergent and pitiable the case, to this broker, and his personal and pecuniary interest dictates refusal or delay. If compelled to provide for the unfortunate a temporary shelter, the treatment to which they are exposed is calculated to break their spirits and smooth the path of degradation and crime.

"A proper separation of the sexes is wholly neglected, and the young and innocent female is exposed to temptation, and her mind, at least, corrupted by infamous association. The destitution of the healthy emigrant is usually only temporary, and their future destiny governed, to a great extent, by the circumstances into which they are thrown at their arrival. With this view of the subject, your Committee are impressed with the conviction that legislative interference is imperatively demanded in justice to the tax-payer and humanity to the emigrant."

"Your Committee have before them a memorial in favor of the proposed alteration of the laws, signed by the acting Presidents of the Irish, German, British, Welsh, and Scotch emigrant societies, which states that the change would increase the revenue