further issues. That of the New York, Ontario and Western Railway Company says as to the complaint of excessive charge on extra baggage that "the cause of complaint, if any cause ever existed, has been removed by the increase of the amount of baggage allowed each adult passenger to 150 pounds, and the reduction of the rate for excess baggage from $2.60 to $1.95 for each 100 pounds; which reduction will go into effect on the first day of November, 1887.”

All of the answers call attention to the fact that defendants have no authority whatever over the Commissioners of Emigration for the State of New York; that on the contrary their agencies are established in Castle Garden at the request of the said Commissioners, and entirely subject to their direction in all matters pertaining to railroad business; and that in all other matters defendants have no right to control whatsoever.

The answer of the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway Company was in the nature of a disclaimer, its road being operated by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company.

When the case came to a hearing it appeared that Mr. Savery was in fact the sole complainant, though he seemed to be doing business under a partnership or corporate name, but as the fact does not affect the merits of the case it is not noticed in what follows.

Upon the issues so made a large amount of evidence was taken by the Commission. The manner in which the emigrant business is conducted by the Commissioners appointed by the State of New York for the purpose was explained by the Commissioners and by such other witnesses as the parties offered for the purpose. It was shown that the circumstances surrounding immigration afforded abundant opportunity for fraud and rapacity of every sort, and that there was not wanting a horde of rapacious persons eager to make the emigrant their prey. As was no doubt truly said by one of the early Commissioners, "their extortions and frauds in all the forms that rapacity could invent or suggest, finally assumed such fearful proportions and became the object of such general abhorrence that legislation for the protection of emi

grants seemed the only possible remedy. The community finally began to understand that it had to suffer in the same if not in a greater proportion than the emigrants themselves if the latter were not secured from the cupidity of runners and the mercenary attempts of agents."

To remedy the evils the Legislature of New York in 1847 passed an act creating a Board of Emigrant Commissioners, whose duty it should be to supervise emigration and protect the immigrants. The creation of such a body probably had some influence in affording protection, but it was far from being effectual. Most of the immigrants had no knowledge. of the English language, and if when they landed in New York they had any definite notions of further destination, they were utterly ignorant of routes and of means of transportation. They were therefore easy prey for any unscrupulous persons who might secure control of their movements while in the city, and for the runners for steamboats and railroads, and it was essential to their protection that all such classes of persons should be kept from them until their transportation was secured.

In 1855 the New York Commissioners of Emigration took possession of Castle Garden as an immigrant landing depot, and under an act passed by the Legislature of New York the same year, all vessels bringing immigrants into the port of New York were required to land them there. The Commissioners also induced the principal railroad and steamboat lines from New York to the interior to organize in Castle Garden a central and joint ticket office for sale at regular public prices, of passage tickets for emigrants to their respective places of destination, and to place such office and the entire business of forwarding the persons and property of emigrants under the immediate supervision of the Commissioners. Having done this, they deemed it necessary to a complete reform that the system of through booking from points in Europe to points of final destination in America should be abolished, it being found that the agents engaged in that business were chargeable with enormous extortions. And they issued a circular to the governments of foreign States,

inviting their co-operation in the measures taken by them for the protection of emigrants.

In 1868 the Legislature of New York passed an act which provided that "it shall not be lawful for any agent, employee or other officer of any railroad company, or for any other person, to sell, offer for sale or otherwise to dispose of any ticket or tickets, or written or printed instrument, or instrument partly written and partly printed for the transportation or conveyance on or by any railroad or steamboat, of any immigrant or deck or steerage passenger, or second-class passenger, arriving at the port of New York from a foreign country at any place or places in the city of New York except such as may be designated by the Commissioners of Emigration, which place or places may from time to time, as they may deem best, be changed by the said Commissioners; Provided, however, That nothing herein contained shall prevent any railroad company from selling tickets to any person at the rates of fare charged for first-class passengers, nor from selling tickets at the principal ticket offices of such company, to immigrant and other second-class passengers, provided that such company has at the same time an agent who shall sell tickets at the place designated by the said Commissioners for selling tickets to immigrants."

The State of New York had at an early day passed an act for the levy upon every master of a vessel bringing immigrants to the ports of the State of a tax of one dollar and fifty cents in respect to each cabin passenger, and one dollar for each steerage passenger, for hospital purposes. The act was declared by the Federal Supreme Court in the Passenger Cases, 7 Howard, 283, to be unconstitutional, but in 1882 Congress passed an act for the levy of the sum of fifty cents for each and every passenger not a citizen of the United States who shall come by vessel from a foreign port to any port within the United States. The money collected was directed to be paid into the Treasury of the United States as an Immigrant Fund and to be used under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury to defray the expense of regulating immigration, and for the care of immigrants, the relief of such as are in distress, and for the general purpose of carry

ing the act into effect. The act allowed no more to be expended at any port than had been collected thereat. The Secretary of the Treasury was authorized by the act to enter into contracts with State boards for carrying into effect the objects which the act had in view.

Under the authority conferred by this act the Secretary of the Treasury entered into a contract with the Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York whereby the Commissioners undertook to receive all immigrant passengers at Castle Garden, or at some other suitable place under their control, and there provide means for their accommodation, including interpreters, and suitable accommodations for such as shall become sick or in distress, or idiots, or lunatics, or a public charge, for a period not exceeding a year. The Board also undertook to carry out such regulation as might be established by the Secretary, to employ all necessary persons to effectuate the purposes of the contract and to render monthly account of expenses, which were to be paid from the Treasury.

To give complete effect to the intent of the act of Congress. the Commissioners of Emigration invited the co-operation of the railroad companies whose lines enter New York city, and assigned to them suitable and sufficient space within Castle Garden for their immigrant ticket and luggage departments, and wharf accommodations abreast the Garden for their immigrant transfer barges. In accepting these accommodations the railroad companies requested that arrangements be made under which all details of the receiving of emigrants, furnishing them with the desired information respecting rates and charges, selling them tickets, trucking, weighing, and checking their luggage should be placed under the immediate supervision of a joint agent to be appointed with the approval of the Board, and that all the expenses of such joint agency should be shared by the railroad companies in proportion to the number of immigrants ticketed over their respective lines. The suggestions of the railroad companies were accepted by the Board and the joint agent was appointed, who made his office in Castle Garden, and sold tickets, weighed baggage, and transacted other incidental business for all the roads.

Notwithstanding this joint arrangement the several railroads did not co-operate in entire harmony, and the volume of immigration was sufficient to tempt them to underhanded and secret arrangements under which the rates for transportation of immigrants from New York to Chicago were reduced from the normal rate of $13 to $7.50, and were finally for a time reduced to $1.00. In this great cutting of rates the benefits of the reduction were not, as a rule, received by the immigrant, but were monopolized by agents and other middlemen, who were thus enabled to reap enormous profits. In January, 1886, eleven railroad companies united to form an immigrant clearing house, having for its purpose the adjustment of accounts with steamboat agencies, the enforcement of uniform rules for the conduct of the immigrant business at the various receiving points on the Atlantic seaboard, the sale of tickets at uniform published prices, and the abolition of secret contracts between railroad and steamship companies, booking companies or private forwarding firms. The companies uniting to form the Clearing House were the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada; the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company; the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway Company; the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company; the Pennsylvania Railroad Company; the Boston and Lowell Railroad Company; the Central Vermont Railroad Company; the Fitchburg Railroad Company; the Boston and Albany Railroad Company; and the New York and New England Railroad Company. Afterwards the New York, Ontario and Western Railway Company and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company joined them.

A joint agent was placed in Castle Garden by these companies who was supplied with tickets over all their lines. The emigrants when brought into the Garden were registered before outsiders were permitted to have any communication with them, and if they saw fit to remain in the Garden until they took train for their final destination they were supplied with provisions by licensed dealers at prices which were fixed by the Emigrant Commissioners and posted on the walls in different European languages to prevent deception