Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/81

Rh that he could have the watch in advance. The runner took it from his own pocket, threw the chain over the neck of the Englishman, and put the watch in his pocket. The man then went to work and got all the passengers booked according to agreement. They went up to the city in company. The luggage was taken to the boat. The runner and his friend went into an office, where they found a man, who seized the Englishman and exclaimed, 'Then you are the man that robbed the man of his watch, are you?' The runner made his escape precipitately, and the Englishman was compelled to give up the watch, and paid a handsome sum in addition."

Tobias Boudinot, being duly sworn, says: "I am Captain of Police of the Third Ward. Many of the steamboats that land emigrants from Quarantine land at the docks in the Third Ward. There they are immediately visited by the runners from the emigrant boarding-houses, backed by bullies to assist in soliciting passengers to go to the different houses. As the emigrant attempts to take his luggage from on board the boat, the runner will endeavor to get it from him, and by force, unless there is a sufficient police to protect him, representing that they will keep them at sixpence sterling for each meal, and sixpence sterling for lodging, and no charge made for cartage or storage for luggage. When the emigrant comes to pay his bill, he is never able to get off at the contract price, but is compelled to pay from three shillings to fifty cents for each meal and lodging, one dollar and fifty cents for cartage, when, if it was paid at the time, it could not, under the law, be but thirty-one cents and fifty cents per day for storage for an ordinary-sized chest, and other things in proportion."

The greatest frauds, however, were committed by the forwarding-houses, to which some allusion has already been made in the foregoing affidavits. At that time, the only route West was via Albany, and thence by the canal, or, since 1846, by railroad to Buffalo, the Erie and Pennsylvania railroads not having been completed until 1852 or 1853. The trip from New York to Albany was made by steamer, and was comparatively the quickest part of the journey West, as it did not take more than ten hours to reach Albany. The emigrants generally bought tickets in