Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-05-04
THE BARGE OFFICE EYE.
DETECTS PHYSICAL INTERSECTIONS
IN IMMIGRANTS.

fore Being Allowed to Land.
Few immigrants whose mental or phys-
ical condition prohibits them from landing
go through the portals of the barge office
without being found out. The system of
inspection which ends there begins at the
port from which the immigrant sails. Just
after boarding the steamship he is exam
med In a cursory way by the ships sur
geon or an assistant. As the steamship
companies pay for the support of every de-
barred immigrant pending decision in his
case, and are compelled to take him back
free of charge, it is TO their interest to have
none but steerage passengers who are
mentally and physically sound.
BY taking a first or second cabin passage
an Immigrant may evade the final rigid
inspection at the barge office, and get into
Uncle Sans dominions merely to become
charge in the future. This is possible, be-
cause cabin passengers, even though they
may intend to settle in the United States,
are not subjected to any examination, save
one of the most perfunctory sort, either
before or after landing at the piers of the
steamship companies
Since the federal government assumed
charge of the landing of immigrants no
cases of contagious disease have been dis
covered by the barge Office physicians
Health OAicer William NJ Smith general
~ manages TO find out at Quarantine,
where he or his assistant boards every in
coming vessel from foreign port, whether
or not there is contagion on her.
LANDING PASSENGERS.
II the disease is not a virulent one like
smallpox, yellow fever or cholera, DR.
Smith sends a cipher dispatch 10 DR.. X. NJ.
GUiteras, chief of the barge office staff,
telling him how any pa+iapt. ba ,,,o,. 49,
rect, the nature of their disease and what
ship they arrived on. The ships physician
frequently discovers the disease on the
voyage and has the patients isolated in the
ships hospital. If they are children, with
measles, scarlet fever or diphtheria, they
are transferred from the ship to the immi-
grant barge, where they are kept in a
closed room apart from the other immi-
grants.
After all the barge's we'll passengers have
been landed the i'll ones are taken off and
put into the barge Office contagion ward.
They are there examined, and if the dag
nosls of DR.. Smith is confirmed the pa
tients are sent to the reception hospital at
the foot of East Sixteenth street. where the
health department takes charge of them.
Smallpox patients are sent directly from
quarantine to North Brother island
Foreign municipalities overburdened
with paupers have habit of shifting the
responsibility for their support on Uncle
sam. They are cunning enough TO send
only those whose lncap2city cannot be cas-
lily detected 1t is to find these that DIR.
Guiteras and his assistants go out on the
stone pier nearly every day in the year and
watch the immigrants as they descend the
gangplank from the immigrant barges
Only few of those who are detained for
more thorough examination than is posi-
bic at the foot of the gangplank, down
which the home seekers come in swift pro
session, arc finally excluded.
:;ecrepit men or women, whose Iabored
gait gen. rally gives them away, are always
detained until they or their relatives give
assurance in the substantial form of $500
bond that they will not become a charge on
the government.
GOOD EYES NEEDED.
An immigrant with glass eye is invari-
ably held-not to pay duty on his eye, but
TO allow the doctors to make careful ex-
animation of his real eye to see if it is like
ly to last. Several immigrants with glass
eyes have been sent back since the federal
government took charge of immigration
at this port because the sight of their re-
naming eyes was so poor that their ability
to support themselves was a question of
only few months.
A immigrant with that form of disease
called locomotor ataxy, the symptoms of
which resemble paralysis of the lower
limbs, is usually discovered by his shutting
gait. The deaf and dumb are not detected
at the gangplank. They are found out by
the registry clerks, who always ask ques-
tions requiring verbal responses.
After running the gauntlet of practiced
eyes at the foot Of the gangplank the pro
cession of immigrants passes under the in
spection of DR.. \. D. Newborn as it flies
past the registry clerks on the second floor
Of the building. DR.. Newborn has the OBJ
servant eye of an artist to assist him in
singing out those who are mentally IN
| sound. He not infrequently takes pencil
sketches of those whom he detains His
point of observation is sometimes chair
placed on top of a table in the fenced in
closure, where detained persons are cross
questioned by the barge Office officials.
DETECTING IDIOTS.
There are two narrow passage ways on
either side of this inclosure, and through
these the immigrants march in single file
into the land of opportunity, or to the pen
for the prohibited back of and to the west
of the Enclosure. 1t happens sometimes
that deaf and dumb immigrant with a
trade convinces his examiners that he is
just as able to take care of himself as any
of his fellow voyagers, and he is permitted
to land.
1t is not difficult to detect imbeciles or
idiots, but the sharpest observation is
necessary to discover deranged persons,
who show no palrable physical symptoms
of their malady, and who answer all ques-
tons coherently. In such cases the physi-
clans note the expression of the eyes, and
sf oh, mi
is held for further examination. Within
few days he usually shows by his actions
whether or not he is demented.
Immigrants afflicted with dropsy of the
head, called by the doctors hydrocephalus,
the sign of which is an abnormally large
head, are debarred as a rule A half wit
ted immigrant thus afflicted was allowed
to land few months ago in charge of his
father because he was more than able to