Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1889-07-05
AT CASTLE GARDEN.
SCENES ABOUT THE GREATEST
DOORWAY IN THE WORLD.


MILLIONS ENTER THE UNITED
sTATEs-How THE NEW COMERs
LOOK AND ACT-IT WAS HERE
THAT JENNY LIND SANG YEARS
AGO.
The old Castle Garden building
is not a pretty one. 1t is simply
and old fashioned round stone fort,
from which the implements of war
have been missing some forty
years, aud in their place are a few
ratings dividing the floor into
large cribs or pens into which the
emigrants are herded almost like
cattle. But 1t Is an amazingly in
teresting building. In itself it
carries the mind back to the revO-
lutionary period, when the city
was in It's babybood-a little vii.
lage clustering around the Battery.
Then one recOllects that after this
, it was fashionable gathering
place "A sort Of opera house, the
one in which Jenny Lind sang
when she was here. after that
the interest in the old building
ceased to be local, and has become
almost universal rather than ma
tional, for winding through its sin
gle great apartment from the
boats on the river side to the gates
that face the park has passed
flood of men and women from every
civilized land, numbering S,OOO,-
900 souls, and building up our
population by a method unprece-
dented in the worlds history.
SCANNING A SHIPS LOAD.
Two ship loads of green horns
were filing into the old fort as l
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
we're no contagious diseases aboard,
bat at the water gate of the Castle
were o.her doctors who narrowly
scanned every emigrant as he or
she landed, and who every now
and then touched one on the
shoulder and bade him stand aside.
Il was their business to discover
any such severe sufferers from i'll.
ness az might seem 10 be unable
to make their own way ~ this
country, all cripples and whatever
young girls might happen along
who appeared to be on the verge
of motherhood without accOmpanl-
ment of husbands. These amount
to very many every year. All
snch we're afterward closely ques.
toned, and unless there was some
body to guarantee that they should
not become a 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 1t
is the duty OF the steamship people
to scruunize all who apply for pas
sage on the other side and to re-
fuse to bring emigrants Of the 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 un'
palatable looking repasts at pro-
vision counters, washed and tidled
themselves, sprawled out on the
benches and SLEPT, aud so 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 rspaciOus nav OF the
great west. Some of them had
their money changed by brokers
appointed for the purpose, who
doubtless make a 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 poor
est Italian woman at the same rate
as the 81 900 of the well to do.
I PROTECTED FROM sHARPERs.
1 The only money the emigraDts
f can part with in the garden now
b. must 90 for provisions or railroad
. tickets or to the very enterprlslng
barber who has shop there and
T. seems in much demand. His signs
e are peculiar. They are in German
}. and they announce "Razoring, iif'
@ teen cents head washing, twenty
i cents.v The signs of the provision
-. dealers show that loaves of rye
bread fetch fifteen cents, or Other
r bread ten cents {; that cheese goes
e for twenty cents a pound, and that
n the other articles IN strong demand
1 are ham, pumpernickel, lager beer
!, and pie, all of which are sold a.
T rates proportionate to the prices
) gwen above.
Doubtless there is a good deal
a OF swindling and extortion practlceC
\ among the landlords who keep th'
o emigrants' boarding houses in the
;, streets all around Castle Garden
= but il is the emlgrant's fault if h'
a suffers very badly, for a grea
- -.... IL tln-n ,,lnnnn nro lin1na anI