The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-07
CAUSES WHICH BAR
IMMIGRANTS FROM ENTRANCE TO
 THIS COUNTRY.
Pathetic Scenes Daily Enacted at the
 New York Barge Office.

Pathetic Scenes Daily Enacted at the
 New York Barge Office.
 The causes which bar an immigrant
 from America are many, but, among
 them, pauperism, the probability of the
 foreigners becoming a public charge,
 and violation of the contract labor law,
 cut the greatest figure-idiocy, insanity,
 etc., coming in much smaller propor-
 tions The steamship companies are re-
 quired to examine carefully every immi-
 grant before he is taken on board ship,
 and, if he is ineligible to admission at
 New York, to refuse passage to him.
 This being the ease if, on being exam
 ined at New York, an immigrant IS
 found to be ineligible, the steamship
 company is held responsible for him,
 pays his expenses during detention, and
 gives him free return passage upon the
 next steamer of the same line sailing.
 Since the burning of the buildings on
 Ellis Island immigrants are examined
 and harbored at the Barge office, except
 at night, when they are taken to Ellis
 Island and sleep upon the old steamer
 AetsoaiiGClh' <ahy ddy lliN NioilCi Gu
 the Barge office, armed with permit to
 go through the building, may see the
 crowd of failures awaiting deportation
 in one of the pens Ordinarily save in
 the case of English-speaking mmi-
 grants, the unlucky creatures do not
 know that the verdict has gone against
 them In order to avoid frantic scenes
 and fruitless efforts to escape, they are
 kept in ignorance of their fate until
 they arrive at the steamers pier on the
 morning when the steamer sails; but
 they have a vague feeling that some
 thing is wrong, or they would not be
 cooped up in a pen by themselves and
 detained from day to day, while other
 immigrants come and go. They sit in
 moody silence upon the benches, or pace the floor restlessly, casting furtive, dis
 trustful glances at the officers outside
 their gate, or staring with sullen curios- ity at the jostling, noisy crowd in the next pen, who are waiting for special
 examina ton in the board-roon1, and will ultimately come to the exclusion pen or
 be turned loose upon the world and go
 their way rejoicing. Occasionally a man among the failures will bemoan his lot; but, as a rule, the men are sulien, and even the women and children hud- de on the benches and look about with
 dry scared eyes. A week ago woman and her little girl were to be sent back 7 to Italy on the Saturday morning boat. In some way the woman got an inkling of what was coming and, when the inn migrants were taken from the Narra
 gansett to the Barge office she managed fn with Etflp hid among the rubbish in one of the unfin- ished buildings on Ellis Island. The boat sailed without her, but, later, she was found, half-dead from cold, and brought to the Barge office, where she covered in a corner like some hunted dumb animal and shuddefed every time a name was called In the hall
 To any one standing on the main floor of the building, and watching crowd from some ship filing past the doctors and preliminary examiners, there is an unquestionable suggestion of Dante's Inferno about the scene. Only three cir cles are visible. The others lie at the steamer pier, and in the far country where the excluded will be dunfped, when the steamship company's respon- sibility ends Here in the Barge office 1 are first, the swarms of arriving immi- grants men, women and children of all nationalities, staggering under bulky | loads of luggage, bewildered, frightened l whirled on from examiner to examiner. | They escape the doctor who examines their heads for favus, the dreaded scalp | disease which is particularly prevalent | among the Prussians, to fall into the | hands of another man. in blue clothes, | who looks sharply for traehoma, or con tagious eye disease. Next hoods and | head covering are pushed back in search | for the goitres that are so common, and | that often imply heart trouble and | consequent probability of illness within | a short time. All signs of physical | weakness are noted; and all the cases | detected are turned, temporarily, into | the first detention pen, to be sent to the | special inquiry department later. It is pitiable to see man who knows he ear- | ries the marks of il-health in his face | try to brace himself into vigor as he confronts the doctors or to slink by, | without being noticed; and 1t is a good 1 thing to see sturdy yellow-haired Swede square his great shoulders and look the doctor straight in the face with his clear blue eyes, magnificently con- scious of his own superb physical con- dition. The Germans take the exami- nation stolidly the Russians and Hun garians, patiently, the Italians nervous y, the English angriiy, and the Irish with jovial grns. The homely women seuttle past the doctors, the pretty ones limple and try to look unconscious Prom the floor below the second circle ,f the Inferno, the special inquiry vic- inns look up at the new arrivals, with a certain impersonal sympathy; and, be- Jend, in the third circle, the wretches whom the board has damned stare sul- enly through the iron grating at a world against which they have a yrudge. After the doctors have had their in ling the immigrants who have success ( ully passed them, fall into the hands of ,ther examiners, who compare their 1 tories with the records on the ships pa ,ers, find out how much money they ( lave, and ask enough questions to make | he best intentioned foreigner lie like q l ,irate from sheer confusion. No soon r is this SGylla passed than the immi- I rant tumbes into most deadly Cha ybdis in the shape of contract labor ex- and if, having been hurled g rom reef to reef, he finally gets into mooth water, and is tossed ashore, C aged, breathless and uncertain of his ! ate he is taken in hand by mild off a