The times., 1899-09-25
OCEAN LINERS ovERCRoWDED.
This Goyernsnent Unable to Make
Rules for Incoming Vessels.

| AhfS Wv Unable 10 MAKE
| Rules for Incoming Vessels.
| NEW YORK, Sept 24-Attention is
called in an article In the Engineering
News" published yesterday, TO the dangers
| arising from the overcrowding of west
bound transatlantic steamers with i'm
migrants, to which evil it would appear
that the United States Government is pow
erless to apply a remedy
"A recent instance of overcrowding. -
says the article, was brought to the at
tention of member of the staff of this
journal, who crossed ON the steamer Werk-
| endam, of the Holland America Line leav-
ing Amsterdam August IL and Boulogne-
-sur-Mer on August 49, According to the
United States certificate of inspection,
posted III a prominent place on the vessel,
she carried eight boats, four of them life
boats and three life RATS, carrying capacity
OF boats and RATS not stated, and 318 cork
! lie preservers, and the vessel was allowed
to carry 112 cabin and 12S steerage pas
sengers, a total of 240.
The vessel actually carried, however, on
THIS trip 90 cabin passengers and about $50
steerage passengers, a total of more than
! TWO and half times the number allowed
by the United States inspectors, or twice
as many passengers as there were life
belts
If the vessel had coilided with an Ice
berg, a derelict or another vessel, and the
crew and passengers been forced to take
TO the boats, the horror of the situation
may be imagined. Allowing that H. life
belts were in the rooms of the cabin pas
sengers, and, therefore, inaccessible to the
steerage, and that some of the remaining
belts were appropriated by the crew, there
would he p0k ifa haIt Itc fxh ha diuid dai q
boz steerage passengers; and it is not Iossi-
bic that the lifeboats and RATS were any
where near sufficient to accommodate both
passengers and crew, numbering over
seven hundred in all. The facts above
stated were communicated by letter to MIR.
j. A. Dumont, Supervising Inspector Cen
eral Of the United States Steamboat lnspec-
tion Service, and he replied as follows;
Sir-Referring to your letter of sth instant, in
relation to excess OF passengers on the steamship
Werkendam over that allowed by her United
States certificate of inspection, her voyage from
Amsterdam, arriving at New FORK August 2O uiti-
mo, you are informed that the United States GER
tiiieate only covers the voyage from the United
States to foreign port, the United States inspec
tion laws having no force on steamers bringing
passengers TO the United States. Very respect
fully, JAMES A. DUM0NT,
Supervising Inspector General.
ut appears. then, that the United
ance to an American citizen who makes
trip to Europe that On the outward voy-
age, when the vessel takes the southern
passage, to avoid the fogs on the banks
of Newfoundland and the ieebergs, end
when there is no fear of the boat being
overcrowded with steerage passengers
there will be enough lifeboats, RATS, and
life belts for the use of all the passengers
and crew, but that on the homeward yoy-
age, when the vessel takes the northern
route. passing through the fogs on the
banks. and when the steerage is packed
with immigrants from Russia and South
ern Europe, United States laws offer him
no protection whatever.
II the United States laws are competent
to restrict immigration by means of medi-
cal inspection, by the returning at the ex-
pense of the steamship companies those
immigrants who are likely to become pau
pers, by the contract labor law and by the
entire exclusion of the Chinese, it would
appear that they should also be competent
to restrict it by imposing heavy fine on
vessels which arrive at our ports crowded
with passengers far beyond the limit
which the law permits on outward voy-
ages.
"a law imposing such fine, and strin-
gent enforcement of 1t, has much strong
er reason for existence than simply the
desire to restrict immigration. 1t is that
it is necessary to reduce the dangers to
human life OF the trans Atlantic passage" ;"
William H. Vandentoorn, the general
agent of the Holland American Line, is
now in Europe. No one could be found
last night who was willing to make an of
fetal explanation of the matter on behalf
of the company.