Year: 1870




on Emigrant Ships--The Surgeons


Story OF the Dead Child.


From the New York Standard, Sept 5th.l ]


The favor with which our former
article on this subject was received,
and the public interest awakened by
ii, eOnstrain us 10 continue the narra-
tive of the surgeon on board the vessel
we visited, to prove by his own words
the entire Incompetence for the posi-
ton he occupied Upon our inquiry
whether any of the steerage passen-
gers had died during the voyage, he
said:


Come to my room and I will tell
you OF our only death, thank God
Entering his snug and neatly-fitted
room, We we're seated, and wines were
extended with genuine Irish hOspi-
tality, when he gave the following
nsrration: zone morning when we
had been at sea four or five days, the
carpenter reported to the captain that
achild was dead, and upon my being
sent for, / found II was in the COM
partment where my old country
woman was berthed, and which L had
visited every day. l examined the
body Of the child, which was laid in
one of the berths, and asked the WO-
man, who was weeping bitterly, why
she had not told me the child was i'll.


"Oh, sir, said she, sit was a poor
weakly thing, and would not have
lived.r had seen the mother sitting
before the side-port, the only ventila-
tion Of the room when opened, with
cold sea air blowing over it as it slept,
or at least laid upon her lap, and now
l told her, woman, you should not
have done so" The child was stiff,
and its eyes closed. I examined the
eyelids and felt the body again l
said: woman, you should have told
me your child was sick"


The captain ordered the carpenter
to make a little box, 50 that there
might be at least the appearance Of
burial, if it must go down in the blue
waves to wait. In the course Of 8
couple of hours the carpenter came on
the run to the captain who was on the
deck with me, half scared out of his
wits: 80, captain-dOctor, says he,
the child has come to life-it isn't
dead at all;' and so / found iton going
below. The wind had increased and
the sea had become so rough that the
side port had to be closed, and the in
creased warmth of the place had
brought life into the little thing again.
The heart beat, and its little limbs
were soon made plant and warm by
a little rubbing by the mother. l ad-
ministered a little stimulant, and the
carpenter saved his box, and now both
mother and child are well and hearty,
and ready for the shore, and that's my
only death this voyage. You may
laugh said he, as he refilled the
glasses, and call this an Irish bull,
but faith it's even true, barring the
death, sir


Such is the character of surgeons
employed on these foreign vessels, to
administer to over a thousand per-
sons so lily provided for as to render
immutiny from excessive sickness ab-
solutely impossible. He had visited
the compartment, according to his
own statement, daily; he had seen
the feeble child dangerously exposed
to the cold draft of the open port with
out eautioning the mother until after
il was supposed to be dead. He had
made so casual an examination Of the
body as not to be able to distinguish
between q temporary state of asphyxia
and real death; and but for the fortu-
nate rising Of the wind and rOughen-
ing Of the sea, which required the
closing Of the port, the little thing
would in reality have gone down into
the blue waves to watt The carpen-
ter would have lost his box.


The incompetence and inhumanity
observed on board this steamship is
hnUH nj N r.rr oil
the owners Of which are neither di-
rectly or Indirectly interested in the
welfare or happiness Of steerage pas
sengers, and who look upon them as
aliens quitting their native land, and
no longer bound to them by the ties of
even nationality. They get their pas
sage money, land them at Castle Gar
den, and their work is done. How
different would il be with American
owners and officers who would be
either directly or remotely interested
in the future welfare OF these emf
grants, so soon to become neighbOrs
and citizens. They would naturally
make every possible effort to make
the passage pleasant and comfortable,
that these emigrants might 90 to their
future homes in the best possible con-
ditiOn of mind and body, to become
at once beneficial to the country and
even a more selfish view, that the
emigrants writing to their friends in
Europe, should give such favorable
accounts of their treatment en- route,
and on their arrival here, as TO induce
the dear ones left behind to follow
them, and thus increase in rapid ratio
the tide of emigration. The increase
in our national wealth, strength, and
property caused by emigration, is uni
versally recognized, and We know of
few questions more worthy of the
earnest action of Congress. We can
well afford to encourage the establish
ment of American lines of steam
ships, if for no other consideration
than those connected with the bring
ing over of people who seek the Uni
ted States as an asylum from the Op-
preston and wrong of the over
countries of despotie Europe.