Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1885-09-10

Swede brought his wife and 81, 400 in
money over with him, and it was an
hour before he could be persuaded to
get it changed into American money,
and then not until he had been taken
inside of the exchange bureau and the
whole thing explained to him about
nine separate times. Put the same
suspicious man ia the hands of a
shrew rascal outside conversant with
Swedish and that money woald
Change ownershipin very short order.
1t Is a common saying at the Garden
that an immigrant knows more when
he arrives there than he ever does
afterward. You eau not teach him
anything. If he is in the tolls of a
swindler and you try to warn him in
time to save himself, he will refuse to
belle We you. The most successful
swlndlers who operate among the inn
migrants lay the foundation for their
work with letters and circulars sent
across the ocean.
What are the immigrants, first i'm
pr~essions Of this country2 Must of
them are very matter-of-fact. The
pleasing fiction that they come here
expecting to pick up money in the
streets is a wild romance. They 90
expect to make money, and they have
a lingering hope that it will come
without much work. They walk out
and view the butt end of the city and
go back much disappointed. 1t isn't
half so fine a. they thought it would
be, they say, and they compare it una
favorable with London or Paris or
Berlin or whatever city they are fam.
liar with. Those who stay at the
Garden long enough to get acquainted
with the sharpers who are constantly
on the watch there or thereabout for
victims come to believe that New Yory
is quiet a lively town after all The
Labor Bureau bum is a well known
character. A ticket from the Labor
bureau gives him entry there every
night, and he houses himself there as
long as he can scrape up money to
buy food. Then he wants to be sent
back to Europe. He is a sort of local
tramp, with the tramp's aversion of
real work.
There are some rare old characters
among the staff of employees in Castle
Garden. Policeman George Miller,
who weeps to think he Is going on the
retired list after twenty-five years of
work in the bureau, is a racy old soul,
full of gruffness and good humor.
He can swear fercely in nineteen
different languages, and not a child
will trenlble in his presence, though
his voice is As grutf as a polar bears.
The veteran ticket taker with the
wooden leg is another jolly old boy,
full of his yarns when in the humor
to tell them. His story of how a dude
IN a street-car assaulted his wooden
leg with 2 play cane because he did
not double it up ard get it out of the
way is splitting enough to split rails
with Commissioner Starr gives the
boys much amusement when he goes
on a fishing eXcursi II on the Castle
Garden pier. Lashing an umbrella
to a Spite he sits him down contented
for a day at a time and catches salmon
and sturgeon by the gill. He is the
best kind of fishermen they make, for
he can got plenty Of sport and never
catch a fish.
Castle Garden is supposed to protect
immigrants from sharpers and from
the impositions of boarding house
keepers and railroad runner land
SIGH" It does it more or less. 1t
never can do it thoroughly SO long as
it permits a horde of runners to come
in and grab immigrants landing too
late to take the evening trains. If
Castle Garden we're situated on an
island in the harbor, and immigrants
having no business in New York were
restrained from coming here, it would
be a much more efficient restraint than
il is at present.