Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/88

74 2. Relative to Overcharging, Repayment, and Extra Luggage.—The New York runners always required pay in advance, giving a ticket on some person at Albany, generally on Roach & Smethurst. When the emigrants arrived at Albany, this ticket was often found to be a fraud, no one appearing there to pass them forward.

Josiah Clarke, who had been most of the time for twenty years in the passenger and freight business at Albany, being sworn, said: "I know that the emigrant passenger business has been carried on fraudulently for three or four years in this city; frequently persons come on from New York with tickets which they suppose are to take them through to Buffalo by railroad, and find that they are to be provided with accommodation in the steerage of a canal-boat on their arrival at Albany. They frequently pay passage from here to Buffalo, and the man furnishing tickets, instead of entering payment in full, enters on the ticket $3 or some other sum  'on account'  of passage, and the man is compelled to pay over again as much as would have been sufficient to carry him through in the first instance. I have known a great number of instances of this kind."

George Thomas, on October 13, 1847, agreed with a person in the city of New York to pay $20 for the passage of himself and family to Pittsburg, and to pay for freight not over $1 per 100 pounds; and he received a ticket and was directed to call upon Henry D. Smethurst, in this city. On arriving in this city, he went to Smethurst's office, who received the ticket, and then charged him $29 for extra luggage. Deponent told him of his contract in New York, and asked Smethurst for his ticket back; he refused to give it, telling deponent to help himself.

William P. Pfaff, one of the German runners of Smethurst at Albany, and one of the meanest of the whole gang, said: "I spend most of my time in transferring passengers from steamboats to the office and canal boats; Mr. Smethurst has no established price to charge passengers; most of the contracts are made in New York, and the passengers are consigned to him; luggage is not weighed in New York; he has no established price for luggage; sometimes the passengers contract in New York; if not, Smethurst charges what he pleases; passengers ordinarily think