4. The next is the
luggage. It is falsely weighed, and the emigrant is often made to pay
five or six times more than the proper charge. "The emigrant," adds Mr.
Schoger, "now thinks himself out of his difficulty, but finds himself
greatly mistaken. The passengers are crowded like beasts into the canal
boat, and are frequently compelled to pay their passage over again, or
be thrown overboard by the captain."[299] The mates of the ships often
took the property of emigrants; their locks were picked and their chests
robbed; for none of which outrages was there the slightest redress.[300]
Before the legislature took any effective action in protecting the
emigrants who landed at New York, many philanthropic and benevolent
societies were formed for that purpose. Of those societies one Hiram
Huested gave the following testimony on oath: "I am sure, there is as
much iniquity amongst the emigrant societies as there is amongst the
runners."[301]
What with shipwrecks, what with deaths from famine, from fever, from
overcrowding; what with wholesale robbery, committed upon them at almost
every step of their journey, it is matter for great surprise indeed,
that even a remnant of the Famine-emigrants survived to locate
themselves in that far West, to which they fled in terror and dismay,
from their humble but loved and cherished homes, in the land of their
fathers.
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