I Observed Only One Verse Of
Scripture On A Tombstone, And It Contained The Appropriate Prayer, "So
Teach Us To Number Our Days, That We May Apply Our Hearts Unto Wisdom."
Having seen the emigrants bid adieu to the Old World, in the flurry of
grief, hope, and excitement, I was curious to see what difference a five-
weeks' voyage would have produced in them, and in what condition they
would land upon the shores of America.
In a city where emigrants land at
the rate of a thousand a-day, I was not long of finding an opportunity. I
witnessed the debarkation upon the shore of the New World of between 600
and 700 English emigrants, who had just arrived from Liverpool. If they
looked tearful, flurried, and anxious when they left Liverpool, they
looked tearful, pallid, dirty, and squalid when they reached New York. The
necessary discomforts which such a number of persons must experience when
huddled together in a close, damp, and ill-ventilated steerage, with very
little change of clothing, and an allowance of water insufficient for the
purposes of cleanliness, had been increased in this instance by the
presence of cholera on board of the ship.
The wharfs at New York are necessarily dirty, and are a scene of
indescribable bustle from morning to night, with ships arriving and
sailing, ships loading and unloading, and emigrants pouring into the town
in an almost incessant stream. They look as if no existing power could
bring order out of such a chaos. In this crowd, on the shores of a strange
land, the emigrants found themselves. Many were deplorably emaciated,
others looked vacant and stupified. Some were ill, and some were
penniless; but poverty and sickness are among the best recommendations
which an emigrant can bring with him, for they place him under the
immediate notice of those estimable and overworked men, the Emigration
Commissioners, whose humanity is above all praise. These find him an
asylum in the Emigrants' Hospital, on Ward's Island, and despatch him from
thence in health, with advice and assistance for his future career. If he
be in health, and have a few dollars in his pocket, he becomes the
instantaneous prey of emigrant runners, sharpers, and keepers of
groggeries; but of this more will be said hereafter.
A great many of these immigrants were evidently from country districts,
and some from Ireland; there were a few Germans among them, and these
appeared the least affected by the discomforts of the voyage, and by the
novel and rather bewildering position in which they found themselves. They
probably would feel more at home on first landing at New York than any of
the others, for the lower part of the city is to a great extent inhabited
by Germans, and at that time there were about 2000 houses where their
favourite beverage, lager-beer, could be procured.
The goods and chattels of the Irish appeared to consist principally of
numerous red-haired, unruly children, and ragged-looking bundles tied
round with rope. The Germans were generally ruddy and stout, and took as
much care of their substantial-looking, well-corded, heavy chests as
though they contained gold. The English appeared pale and debilitated, and
sat helpless and weary-looking on their large blue boxes. Here they found
themselves in the chaotic confusion of this million-peopled city, not
knowing whither to betake themselves, and bewildered by cries of "Cheap
hacks!" "All aboard!" "Come to the cheapest house in all the world!" and
invitations of a similar description. There were lodging-touters of every
grade of dishonesty, and men with large placards were hurrying among the
crowd, offering "palace" steamboats and "lightning express" trains, to
whirl them at nominal rates to the Elysian Fields of the Far West. It is
stated that six-tenths of these emigrants are attacked by fever soon after
their arrival in the New World, but the provision for the sick is
commensurate with the wealth and benevolence of New York.
Before leaving the city I was desirous to see some of the dwellings of the
poor; I was therefore taken to what was termed a poor quarter. One house
which I visited was approached from an entry, and contained ten rooms,
which were let to different individuals and families. On the lowest floor
was an old Irish widow, who had a cataract in one eye, and, being without
any means of supporting herself, subsisted upon a small allowance made to
her by her son, who was a carter. She was clean, but poorly dressed, and
the room was scantily furnished. Except those who are rendered poor by
their idleness and vices, it might have been difficult to find a poorer
person in the city, I was told. Much sympathy was expressed for her, and
for those who, like her, lived in this poor quarter. Yet the room was
tolerably large, lofty, and airy, and had a window of the ordinary size of
those in English dwelling-houses. For this room she paid four dollars or
16s. per month, a very high rent. It was such a room as in London many a
respectable clerk, with an income of 150l. a year, would think himself
fortunate in possessing.
I could not enter into the feelings of the benevolent people of New York
when they sympathised with the denizens of this locality. I only wished
that these generous people could have seen the dens in which thousands of
our English poor live, with little light and less water, huddled together,
without respect to sex or numbers, in small, ill-ventilated rooms. Yet New
York has a district called the Five Points, fertile in crime, fever, and
misery, which would scarcely yield the palm for vice and squalor to St.
Giles's in London, or the Saltmarket in Glasgow. A collection of dwellings
called the Mud Huts, where many coloured people reside, is also an
unpleasing feature connected with the city. But with abundant employment,
high wages, and charities on a princely scale for those who from
accidental circumstances may occasionally require assistance, there is no
excuse for the squalid wretchedness in which a considerable number of
persons have chosen to sink themselves.
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