The weekly Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1861, 1854-10-25
WhiIe slavery.

Right here, on the Hudson, on the forward
decks OF our stately and beautiful steamers,
there is almost nightly exhibited spectacle
Of mingled indecency, construint, exposure
10 disease, and positive agony, which might
wellmnke murderer blush for his relation
ship to mankind. a.. T .-1sa ".g.g-
Shut off by relentless grating from all hos
Ptality or intercourse, except with each
other, are huddled together some scores or
hundreds Of poor emigrants, bound for the
rich but distant prairics of the West. Most
OF these are natives of Europe, perhaps just
landed on our shores--possibIy that day re-
leased from shipboard, and having scarcely
set foot on the shores of the New World;
but there are often intermingled natives of
our city, of the adjacent country, of New
Jersey, OF New England, flying from the in
exorable poverty and unremitted toll to
which the portionless and simple among
crowded populations are too generally sub
jected. They have little money and many
children, and they take the cheapest conve, :
ance proffered them, being assured that it is,
nevertheless, decent, comfortable, and not
unwholesome.
/ Miserable prevarication! murderous de-
ceit! On reaching the boat, they are no;
even permitted to 60 on board at the COM
mon Sangway, but are roughly ordered to 90
forward. There the stern reality first breaks
upon their bewildered vision-the hard and
by no means cleanly planks of the deck are
their lodgings, and the open sky is their on
Iy covering. But this is not all. Scores af-
ter scores of fresh emigrants, reeking with
the minsma of long confinement in the steer
age, during an ocean passage, are pitched
| upon them, until the naked planks, which
they at first revoted at as beds, are no lon
ger attuiuable; they would gladly pay for
chance to stretch their weary limbs on the
clammy deck, but there is not room for all
even to sit down, and the men must take
turns in standing up through the night For
the women, space is generally made, so that
I
they can sit down, and lean their children
against them on this side and that, smother
ing their unavoidable meanings, so that the
youngest and best placed may snatch an hour
or two of troubled slumber during some part
OF the weary night. For the inevitable sick
ness and distress of many there are no prep
arations; they ustvomt as they can. Not
even rough awning, costing, perhaps, fifty
dollars-s drawn over them; but the Au-
tumn dews fall uninterrupted upon mother
and babe, sire and son; and. when the thun
der-storms and rain-squalIs come on, they
have no resource but to huddle closer toaeth-
er, if possible, shrink, and shiver, and sur.
fer.
1t IS our deliberate judgment that no negro
trader IN The South pouM permit cargo Of
his human chattels TO be carried for a single
night wiM as little regard to their health and
comyort-to say nothing Of dscency--as as reg
ularly euinced in the transportation of free
'ohite emigrants (m'any of them American
6orn) from this city to Albany. We believe
it far below the truth to estimate that three
Thousand human lives are annually sacrificed
through the ravages Of diarrhea, dysentery,
cholera, rheumatism, and fevers, in conse-
quence of this North River exposure alone.
And we call upon our city authorities, either
alone or in conjunction with those of Alba
ny, to take instant and effective measures to
arrest this wholesale sacrifice of human life
and happiness on the altar of the basest av-
arice---the most reckless nhumanity. %
HORACE GREELEY.