Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-04-20
EMIGRATION'S TIDE.
SCENES IN THE LABOR BUREAU
AT CASTLE GARDEN.
Work of the Board OF Emigration>Just
Before the Stranger Starts-Scandina.
yians, Germans and Italians-A Pic.
turesquely Dirty Lot.

Before the stranger Starts-Sc1noinAN
yians, Germans and Italians-A Pic.
| turesquely Dirty Lot.
| The garden is at its liveliest just before the
steamer starts. There is a rush for the boat
| then, and you can see forlorn specimens OF
| half a dozen races tumbling over one another
/ in their haste to get aboard Dirty Italians
with big greasy bags on their backs FREEDOM
mate Then come the stolid Germans and
| the heavy faced blonde Swedes and Norwe.
gians Here and there is a pugnacious Eng
| lishman with red cheeks and double trimmed
cap Frenchmen are scarce Emigration
| from France, of course, is small. Emlgra-
ton from Ireland, as every one knows, is un-
usually large Yet Irishmen are not often
seen in the Garden. 1t takes new recruit
from Dublin or Cork about two days to De q
naturalized citizen In week he IS on the
police force. and after that he is ready for
any public vacancy from seat in the board
of aldermen up to commissioner OF enlgra-
| ton itself
| Most Of the English speaking enligrants, in
| fact, know enough to get start here without
| troubling the emigration board at all Four
| fifths Of the Castle Garden tenants are ltal-
| ians, Germans, and Scandinavians, HARM
less, easily managed lot, with scarcely spark
! of huInor among them The Swedes and
| Norwegians look sober and anxious. They
are better dressed and cleaner, too than the
rest, with more decided air of country
| sturdiness about them. Now and then one
sees pretty face, that Of bride generally,
whose honeymoon graces have somehow sur
vived ten days Storage passage. But both
men and women have dazed, homesick look,
! To- Of oh 10 = in
| makes it only the more pathetic and dis
| tressing.
The Germans travel more in families. They
| have dull, philosophical air of resignation.
| Ii they can only get their beer and Bohemian
hard tack they will not grumble. So they sit
patiently on their bags and boxes and wait
for the emigration clerks to dispose of them.
| If the vermin of the Garden trouble them
and they are not as clean as they ought to be
they take that merely as another of the IN.
avoidable ills of life.
The Italians are a picturesquely dirty lot.
They have mad dogs aversion to running
water, and steer clear of the water spigots as
Vaccinations of the evil one. So they have
all the filth they want with its attendant ex-
elements 1t is no uncommon thing down ii
| the Garden to see an Italian woman run her
fingers critically over a childs head, dart
| viciously down at the tiny prey, hold her
fingers and thumb at arms length and give
snap like the falling of a guillotine. Then
the machine like digging and scraping goes
on again. The child pays no attention 70 1t,
absorbed in sucking its dirty thumb. But the
grinning mother seems to enjoy the sport
| hugely.
! Every Italian emigrants instinct is to keep
his eye as closely as possible on his filthy bag
of household goods. No system Of checks
can ever satisfy one OF these ignorant crea-
lures that he is not going 70 be robbed, and
men and women and children hang pltlfully
| for hours at time about the door OF the
baggage room at the Garden for glimpse
OF their nasty belongings inside. When the
express cart comes to carry the stuff away
there will be string of wretched owners jog
gnG doggedly behind the tail board TO the
end of the route. even if it leads away up to
| one of the furthest aqueduct shafts.
The Italians stick together more tenaciously
than the other enigrants. They hang around
| the Garden in groups and sleep on the floor
at night literally in huddles. Macaroni
cooked on shipboard is their chief food, and
they are far too poor and too saving to spend
their pennies at the Garden restaurant
The Labor bureau is one of the busiest spots
| in Castle Garden. 1t is a low, one story
frame house adjoining the castle proper,
where the German and other foreign societies
of New York have setup a free employment
agency. All emigrants have the privilege
OF leaving their names and occupations On
the bureaus books, and any employer may
look over the list and make his offers free Of
charge The Office is open from I a, m. to
SIP. m. every day, and a larger business IS
done probably than at any other agency OF
this sort in New York.
The bureau is divided into two rooms, one
for men and one for women, and outside each
are pasted on a blackboard the long lists Of
wants The same want notice is put in Eng
lish, German, Scandinavian and sometimes
! French. The standing one in French last
week seemed to De "On desire dix coupers de
hois-Ten woodchoppers wanted" The list OF
| German and Scandinavian wants is always
an intricate and polysyllabled one. The men
come in from the Garden, glance at the black
board shyly and sit down on the benches to
| wait.
Most of the men in the Labor bureau 60 for
! laborers, farm hands, stablemen or porters.
! The Swedes and Norwegians stand high on
account of their honesty and faithfu,ness
| The Italians are packed of chiefly under the
charge of some contractor or padrone Of
/ their own
! Over on the womens side are lot OF re-
cruits for domestic service Left TO them
! selves the women are much cleaner and
neater looking than the men, and two months
/ In q city household would level them all up
TO a fair phase Of respectability. A few Irish
! girls are TO be seen among the crowd on the
/ benches. The women are all impatient, and
/ there is a general movement CT suspense
/ when fat boarding house mistress or
| cheap restaurant proprietor comes in. The
! bureau is an easy resource when the employ
/ ment agencies uptown fail, and all sorts Of
/ housewives occasionally drop IN.
/ With all the conveniences and advantages
/ which Castle Garden offers now, it is hard 10
+ realize the dangers and horrors of the old
/ overcrowded emigrant houses, tainted with
/ disease and stained with foul play and crime.
Only few OF the old runners and steer
ers" are left now and the fry they catch is
( next to worthless. The gates Of the Garden
are closed threateningly against them and
( the police have an eye on their snartest
trieks-New York Tribune.
Fans for Hot Weather.
l.