The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-17
GUESS 100000 IMMIGRANTS,
ESTIMATE FOR 19O6-ELLIS ISL
AND CAN'T KEEP UP.
Boats That Got I'm Yesterday Must Lodge
and Feed Their Steera6e Passengers
for Da,s-I 900 English Speakers in
Yesterdays Batch-A Few Cossacks.

Tor Days. 900 EnEliSh speakers III
Yesterdays Batch-A Few Cossacks.
When the immigration authorities at Ellis
Island got on the job yesterday morning
they knew from the list Of steamers piled up
and waiting to be cleared that the bureau had
ahead of it the hardest day andthe hardest
week in its history. They had hardly settled
down to work on q horde OF Italian 5immi-
grants when the telephone began to ring.
More immigrant vessels, and still more, had
been sighted at Fire Island, coming through
the fine spring weather to pile up trouble,
The Inspectors held a conference and laid
out the weeks work.
The capacity Of Ellis Island is about 5000
immigrants a day. 1t can handle a great
many more on a squirt; once, two or three
years ago, it put through 7 800 a day, But
such a pace as that cannot be maintained
without wearing out the force; and it was
planned to handle just about 5000 a day and
no more.
On that schedule the Nieuw Amsterdam,
which arrived in the morning, was sent to
her dock under guard, with instructions to
keep her immigrants aboard until Thursday
afternoon, the very earliest moment when
she can be disposed Of. h Republic,
from Naples, and the iceland, from Ant
werp, which passed Fire Island at noon,
will have to wait until Friday; and anything
alter must wait until Saturday. Other ships
are coming, deeply ~freighted. They made
q snap calculation yesterday and estimated
that the ~piclings of the year will be about
leo, 600. The greatest year in the past
was 500, 600.
F~orty-fye thousand immigrants was the
estimate for the week; the greatest record.
The greatest previous record was made
this year also-the week ending March 81,
when 20, 7Oe arrived. That beats by 1000
the best record for a previous year, made
in q week in April 1903. If this thing keeps
up, however, last week may be beaten by
this and both by some of the weeks to come.
There may, indeed, come a time when
the incoming steamers will have to wait
more than a week with the immigrants
penned up in their Storage before they
can be cleared. Ellis Island, as has been
said, can handle only so many a day, And
every immigrant has to pass through
Ellis Island. Therefore the steamship
companies will lose some OF the profits Of
tnis heavy immigrant traffic through
having to feed the Storage Passengers on
board and through delays TO vessels kept
in port until after their sailing time. The
island got through with 800 yesterday
and will handle 5,640 to-day, The schedules
for Wednesday and Thursday are 4,75l and
5,45s respectively.
rather unusual for these days in the pro-
portion of northern immigrants. More
than one thousand, or one-htth oil the total
we're English speaking ~people-a good pro-
portion of them Scotch. These came on
he Cedric, which carried also a good lot
Of Germans, so that old employees said 1t
reminded them of Castle Garden. Then the
Equita sprang something unusual. 1t
nal l,23l Italians, and not a woman among
them. Mostly they were returning Italian
lGborers, back from their winter in Italy
to work on dams and railroads n public
works.
Further, there were very few Russian
Jews, the Jew preferring not to travel in
The time about Passover. The Umbria.
however, did nave a few refugees escaping
from the troubles in Russia, a set of long
bearded patriarchs in lambskin hats. In
that same batch came a set OF genuine Cos
sacks-big men in long boots, fur hats and
skirted coats. These men, with a few
small and meek women. are consigned to
the West, where they are going 10 try farm
labor.
An item in the general effect was q family
of Young Scotch boys in well made knlcker-
bockers. whose clothes looked ont OF place
in the storage. 4 party of twenty regular
Irish c~olleens, who hung very close together,
we're tremendously scared AT everything
and threw themselves as soon as they
could upon the assistance Of the resident
priest.
Then there was a Russian woman in a
| very greasy dress and terribly matted hair.
but a sealskin coat which appeared to be
genuine: Something was wrong with the
landing of herself and her family. and
while She waited she brcwed tea in a blue
tea kettle and fed it TO the children by way
of the spout. On the whole, however, this
was n rather unpicturesque consignment,
The island will shine as the rainbow to.
morrow, when the Hungarians and Let's
begin to land.
The officials on the island, although they
keep no regular tabs on that point, believe
on snap Judgment that the tendency. OF
immigrants to pile up in New York has
been stopped. The statistics OF last month
are unusual on that point. They sent
immigrants to every State and Territory
in the Union and to every one of our for
eipn possessions. colonies n dependencies
with the single exception Of little Guam
| This is the first time on record that a month
! has covered the entire field.
The number Of new arrivals yesterday
was II, s67.
The seagOers.