Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/74

60 of the city and secure the emigrants from the frauds now practised upon them.

"Within the last month, nearly five hundred emigrants from Germany were sent directly from the ship to the Almshouse, where a large proportion now remain, being utterly destitute of means, and sent out at the expense of the property-owners in their immediate neighborhood. The bondsmen refuse to pay the expenses in this instance, on some wholly insufficient pretence, and the city will be most probably compelled to commence suits for the recovery. It must have been known to the foreign agents shipping such passengers that they principally consisted of paupers. When compelled to leave the ship, they took refuge on the pier, where they continued until the city authorities removed them to Bellevue. Utterly destitute, and strangers to our language and country, sick from the effects of a long voyage and indifferent diet and accommodation, these people became an immediate charge upon the city, and yet the bondsmen refuse to indemnify the Corporation. A lighter was sent by the agents to take off the whole of these passengers, with the view of sending them to Albany; but, many of them being sick, and all being penniless and without means of supporting themselves for that journey, they refused.

"In the event of the bondsmen sustaining the decrepit or aged for the full period of two years required by law, on its expiration they are thrown upon the county for support. Such a class of persons for many reasons usually remain in our city; and, if a proper system of commutation prevailed, a fund would be raised adequate for their maintenance."

The change so long desired by all disinterested parties was effected a year later by the establishment of the Board of the Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York.