Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/75

 CHAPTER IV. ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK—RUNNERS—BOARDING-HOUSES—INLAND VOYAGE.

ALTHOUGH in point of time anterior to the period of which we are treating, the facts which constitute the basis of the narrative of this chapter refer to a state of things which, in a greater or lesser degree, had existed for the preceding twenty years, but which was fully exposed, for the first time, only by the careful official investigation, of which we shall speak in the following.

The kind of fraud and imposition on emigrants which is here described continued until the year 1855, that is, up to the time when, by an act of the Legislature, the Commissioners of Emigration secured the compulsory landing of emigrants at the Castle Garden depot, which gave them the control over them necessary for their protection. Not having sufficient means at their command, the Commissioners for years had tried in vain to protect the emigrants on their landing. They perceived the real source of the evil from the time of the creation of the Board, and did all in their power to do away with it. Complying with their urgent solicitations, the Legislature, in October 11, 1847, appointed a select committee to investigate the frauds and impositions alleged to be practised upon emigrant passengers arriving in this State. The Committee, consisting of Messrs. Thomas Smith, A. S. Upham, D. S. McNamara, A. E. Chandler, and James C. Rutherford, cheerfully assumed and most efficiently discharged their duties. It is due to the indefatigable and energetic efforts of these gentlemen that we have the documentary evidence of all sorts of frauds practised upon emigrants. In order to make a thorough investigation of the subject committed to their charge, they went to the city of New York, and made themselves acquainted with the various stages through which the emigrants passed after landing, till they got on board the steamboats to come