Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/83

Rh "I have found in most cases (especially when they come in large bodies)," says David Neligan, an old citizen of Albany, and the official agent of the Commissioners of Emigration at that place, "that the emigrants were 'booked' in New York, meaning that they had agreed for their passage, and were consigned to some one of the forwarding-offices here. In such cases, they are generally furnished with a 'passage-ticket' purporting to be a receipt in full for the conveyance of themselves and luggage to their destination; but on their arrival here they find in many instances they must pay steamboat freight for their luggage, cartage to the office or canal-boat, and canal freight for their luggage again, which has all to be weighed; and here the poor strangers begin to discover that they have been imposed upon. In many cases, too, the emigrant discovers here, for the first time, that there is a balance due on his passage-money (which balance varies from one to twenty dollars), and is so endorsed on his ticket, and which he must pay on pain of detention and forfeiture of all he has previously paid. In other cases, the contract is to pay half the money in advance, and the other half at the end of the journey; but I have never known an instance of this kind in which the balance of the money was not exacted in Albany, although their destination may be in the far West or Canada. Remonstrance in such cases is utterly in vain, and the poor emigrant is compelled to submit, and frequently at a very great sacrifice of convenience, and even of physical requirements."

"We will now enter more closely into an examination of the three most flagrant modes of ill-treatment and fraud, namely, 1st, False weighing; 2d, Overcharging the emigrant for transportation of himself and luggage; 3d, Brutal treatment on the part of agents and runners.

The ordinary prices from New York and Albany by steamer and canal were very low. The price paid by the forwarding-houses for passage on deck of the steamboats from New York to Albany and Troy was uniformly fifty cents for each passenger, including fifty pounds of luggage, and all extra luggage fifteen cents per hundred pounds; from Albany to Buffalo regularly fifty cents, and exceptionally only one dollar for steerage passage, forty pounds of luggage free, and extra luggage thirty-six and a half cents per hundred