, 1889-06-20
AT CASTLE GARDEN.
SCENES ABOUT THE GREATEST
DOORWAY IN THE WORLD.

Ah1 ~ AhEoukh which lullllOnh GuLtF
the United states-How the New Corners
Look and Act-It Was Hero That Jenny
Lind Sang Years Ago.
The old Castle Garden building is not
a pretty one. 1t is simply an old fash
Toned round tone fort, from which the
implements of war nave beer missing
some forty years, and in their place are
a few ratings dividing the floor into
large cribs or pens into which the emil
grants are herded almost like cattle.
But it is an amazingly interesting build
ing. In itself it carries the mind pack
to the revolutionary period, when the
city was in its b~abyhood-a little village
clustering around the Battery. Then one
recollects that after this it was a fashion
able gathering place, a sort of opera
house, the n in which Jenny Lind sang
when she was here. After that the in
terest in the old building ceased to be
local, and has become almost universal
rather than national, for winding through
its single great apartment from the boats
on tho river side 10 the gates that face
the park has passed a flood of men and
women from every civilized land, num-
bering 5000, 900 souls, and building up
our population by a method unprecedent-
ed in the worlds history.
SCANNING A SHIPS LOAD.
Two ship loads of greenhorns were
filing into the old fort as 1 stood looking
on into the first pens from boats that
had brought them from ships lying out
in the harbor. Down the bay the health
officers had assured themselves that there
were no contagious diseases aboard, but
at the water gate of the Castle were
other doctors who narrowly scanned
every emigrant as he II she landed, and
who every now and then touched one on
the shoulder and babe him stand aside.
II was their business to discover any
such severe sufferers from illness as
might seem to be unable to make their
own way in this country, all cripples
and whatever young girls might happen
along who appeared to be on the verge
of motherhood without the ~accompani-
ment of husbands. These amount to
very many every year. All such were
afterward closely questioned, and unless
there was somebody to guarantee that
they should not become n charge upon
the public they were sent back to Europe
by the steamer lines that brought them,
at no charge to them or the authorities,
because it is the duty of the steamship
people TO %scrutinize all who apply for
passage on the other side and to refuse
to bring ~emigrants of this sort.
These people were all waiting their
turn to give their name, age, birthplace
and destination for the clerks to put on
record in the big books of the garden.
While they waited they smoked their
pipes, nursed their babies, bought I'M
palatable looking repasts at provision
counters, washed and tidied themselves,
sprawled out on the benches and slept,
and 80 were obliged to spend the greater
part of the day until the boats from the
railroad depots should come up in the
afternoon to take them up town or over
TO Jersey, and thence into the rapacious
NAV of the great west. Some of them
had their money changed by brokers ap-
pointed for the purpose, who doubtless
make q great deal of profit, but are under
bonds to charge no more Than Wall street
rates of commission, and to change the
single silver piece of the poorest Italian
woman at the same rate as the 81, 900 of
one of the well to do.
PROTECTED FROM sHARPERs.
The only money the emigrants can
part with in the garden now must &c
for provisions or railroad tickets or to
the very enterprising barber who has q
shop there and seems in much demand.
His signs are peculiar. They are in
German. and they announce "Razoring,
fifteen cents; head washing, twenty
cents" The signs of the provision
dealers show that loaves of rye bread
fetch fifteen cents, or other bread ten
cents; that cheese goes for twenty cents
a pound, and that the other articles in
strong demand are ham, pumpernickel,
lager beer and pie, all of which are sold
at rates proportionate to the prices given
above.
Doubtless there is a good deal of
swindling and ~extortion practiced among
the landlords who keep the emigrants'
boarding house in the streets all around
Castle Garden, but it is the emigrant's
fault II he suffers very badly, for n great
many of these places are licensed, are
reasonably well conducted, and are re-
sponsible for the manner in which they
treat their guests.
But this is q very wicked city, and
down about the Battery is q very wicked
part of it, SO that, even if an emigrant
manages to get into a good house where
he is not charged more than twice as
much as he ought to be, he cannot
safely venture q half a block away
from his lodgings without being ap-
preached by some of the boldest and
most plausible and most ingenious ras-
Gals in town. who make 1t q business
to live upon these people. The best plan,
after all, is for the emigrant not to leave
Castle Garden at all, but follow the
routine course of the majority Of his
fellow passengers, and start away by
railroad, with his tickets looked after
and his baggage carried free, on the
afternoon of tho day he lands.-Julian
Ralph in Pittsburg Bulletin.
Wanted His Father to Know.
1t wa at Tonquin. The young Count