As
1,300 of my countrymen are in this vessel, the Consul received $2,600 for
certificates. My employer tells me that the Government at Washington
know of this fraud, and are so bitterly opposed to the existence of such
a wrong that they tried hard to have the extor--the fee, I mean,
legalised by the last Congress;--[Pacific and Mediterranean steamship
bills.(Ed. Mem.)]--but as the bill did not pass, the Consul will have
to take the fee dishonestly until next Congress makes it legitimate. It
is a great and good and noble country, and hates all forms of vice and
chicanery.
We are in that part of the vessel always reserved for my countrymen.
It is called the steerage. It is kept for us, my employer says, because
it is not subject to changes of temperature and dangerous drafts of air.
It is only another instance of the loving unselfishness of the Americans
for all unfortunate foreigners. The steerage is a little crowded, and
rather warm and close, but no doubt it is best for us that it should be
so.
Yesterday our people got to quarrelling among themselves, and the captain
turned a volume of hot steam upon a mass of them and scalded eighty or
ninety of them more or less severely. Flakes and ribbons of skin came
off some of them. There was wild shrieking and struggling while the
vapour enveloped the great throng, and so some who were not scalded got
trampled upon and hurt.
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