Daily Honolulu press. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1886, 1886-01-15
SOME QUEER PEOPLE
WHO COME ACROSS THE BIG POND
IN THE sTEERAeE.
An Hour at Castle Garden-The First Step
into tho Promised Land children,
Children Everywherq-The
First Meal Ashore.
New York world.l

New York World
To the casual on-looker the distinctive
feature OF a ship-load of immigrants at Cas-
tie Garden is the striking color Of the new
corners dress The women fairly revel in
sky blue shawls tied about their heads and
Magenta gowns OF dresses OF deep and In
sistent yellow. The men are quite as pro-
nounced in the color Of their garments, and
he is a poor immigrant indeed who does not
blossom out in brilliant indigo shirt or a
pair of greenish Trousers. No two styles Of
head covering are alike and the contrast is
as picturesque as the boldest French painter
ever ventured to put into Breton coast
fishing scene. Even the babies dresses, and
there is always large proportion OF babies
are as bright as their mothers' costumes and
quite as un-American.
1t is this constant commingling of chang
ing colors that makes the Kaleidoscope pict-
ure at Castle Garden different from any
other in America. That and the forms Of
the women. Nowhere else can one see such
triangular or pyramidal women Not one
OF them has the slightest trace Of a waist
They seem built up from the ground in the
shape Of an Egyptian pyramid. The broad
skirts touching the floor form the base, and
lead up by unbroken straight lines to the
apex Of the pyramid-the head.
After the ship has landed her cabin pas
sengers at the dock, the crowded storage
people plunge down the gang plank into the
garden. The first step into the promised
land, their Eldorado, is not wholly reassur-
ing. They thought America free coun-
try, but find themselves prisoners In the
garden, cut off from everybody by long
list of rules and regulations printed in every
language that anyb body ever cared to learn.
Watchful attendants are at their side to tell
them what to do, and with the philan-
thropic patience characteristic OF emigrants
they sit down to wait for fortune and the
boat. They learn to work very early, and
the little girl of 10 or l3 years employs the
idle time in knitting warm stockings that
will do good service in the cold northwest
farm lands whittier they are bound.
THE CHILDREN.
Sifted In every whore, as thick as stars in
tho milky way, are the children. They
seem to burst nto blossom in Castle Garden
a. naturally as the leaves crowd the trees
outside in Battery park. They only, of all
the ships company, do not care fig for tho
new surroundings The new country has
the same sunshine that they knew at home
and there is the same freedom for play that
they liked there. Every grown person
seems to have more children than baggage
The usual rule Is. the, greater the one the
less of the other. You can sec motherly-
looking widowers leading and carrying long
strings OF children and tired mothers wor-
rying over sick babies.
Back of these il you stand on tiptoe and
look over their heads, you can see little
group of two boys and girl clutching each
other lightly hand in hand. About their
necks or sewed to their clothing is tag.
1t is written In low German and begs Of the
good American to forward the little tots to
their uncle who lives somewhere In Dakota
or Manitoba They have come all the way
from Germany alone Just month ago
two children, one from Ireland and the
other from Holland, exchanged their tags
with childish playfulness and it took reams
of explanation to make the relatives believe
they had the right children.
These little emigrants are as q rule too
young to realize their changed lots In life
and gambol on unconcernedly amid their
strange surroundings or sit with look OF
supreme patience on their stolid faces
munching huge slices Of course rye bread
and Limburger cheese, for they can eat any
and every thing, and no fear OF cholera in
fantum disturbs their parents on their ac-
count
FIRST MEAL ASHORE.
One consolation the emigrant has at the
Garden that is dear to him He can buy
food in his own language and eat it the same
woy II he wants to-. There is a bread coun-
ter whore the prices are posted up in diff
ferent languages and where the purchaser is
offered the choice of "Schwartz brod,
Pumparnickel, Wurst,n and all the similar
articles of food he has been accustomed to
across the water.
II the countenance is any indication, there
is greater satisfaction in supper made
up of things with familiar names than ordi-
nary people miss. The old man unties his
boarded pennies from the corner of his
handkerchief where he keeps them. school
girl fashion, and invests in loaf of Pun
pernickel. The old lady buys mug Of
beer and the two seat themselves side by
side on an old box that contains their entire
property and make the first meal In the
new country. 1t is not much, but they en-
Joy it, and he rolls over and goes to sleep
on the floor as naturally as If he had cemped
out there for years.
Pets they bring too Of all kinds and in all
conditions Of sea sickness. One of the worst
specimens seen lately was green parrot
in a cage. It belonged to a boy of 10 and
was the only friend he had in this country.
The parrot was Enthusiastically i'll and
moaned its fate In tongue that nobody but
the boy knew. The lad chung to the cage
with homesick devotion and the last seen OF
him he was loaded on a train, lovingly
carrying the cage under his arm.