Orleans County Louisiana Archives News.....Italian Immigrants in New Orleans 1898 - Article 5 of 9 October 27, 1898 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Stephanie Lynn slynn@plexusweb.com August 17, 2023, 12:34 pm The Times Democrat October 27, 1898 The Times Democrat - October 27, 1898 BOARD OF INQUIRY It Will Wind Up the Immigrants Today -- Of the 1869 Aboard the Bolivia 160 Held. -- Britannia Lands 44 of her 70 Rejected Sicilians -- Scopes at the Northeastern Fruit Wharf Yesterday -- Capt. Craig Tells How Immigrants Behave at Sea -- The 800-odd Sicilians, who were still aboard the Bolivia yesterday morning, were among the people who did not appreciate the change in the weather a bit. They showed up on deck in all manner of wrappings, shivering, blue-nosed and cut to the bone by the wind. There were no sealskin cloaks gracing the shoulders of the women, and overcoats were an unknown quantity among the men. All of them, fathers and mothers, boys and girls, young and old, were protected by coverings around the shoulders. Most of them had shawls. Those who didn’t had blankets. There were shawls of all sizes and conditions, all colors and all styles. Inspectors Albeely, Eppler and Baker, assisted by a large force of customs officers and a detail of policemen, got to work as early as possible. Local Inspector Montgomery spent the morning on the Britannia and the afternoon on the Bolivia. While the inspectors worked on board the ship, the customs officers examined the baggage of Sicilians who had been given liberty to land in the Northeaster freight depot, just across the wharf from where the Bolivia was lying. By 5 o’clock the last immigrant had been inspected. Of the 1369 about 1200 were passed. The lucky ones were swallowed up as soon as their baggage was released in the arms of the waiting ones outside. The hundred and sixty-odd who had detention cards meted out to them were cooped up below until a board of inquiry sets on their cases. As one of the inspectors remarked “We thought we would hold them for a while. That is why we had put them in the hold.” A Board of Inquiry, organized yesterday morning, yesterday struggled with the holdovers of Sicilian extraction aboard the Britannia. Another board will be organized today to give the Bolivia’s unfortunates a chance to explain why they should be allowed to enter the United States. The labors of this board may take two or three days. THE IMMIGRANTS WHO ARE HELD Nearly all the immigrants who are being held for action by a Board of Inquiry were turned down by the Inspector because of the possibility that they might not be able to take care of themselves. “Likely to become a public charge” was the inscription on the detention cards. Among them are many women and children, who will probably be claimed tomorrow for next day by relatives. If a woman comes to America to meet her husband and the husband does not show up, she is extremely apt to be booked for a return trip across the ocean. The engagement at the dock is perhaps as important as any other made during the marital existence - as important, perhaps as the engagement in which the blushing peasant girl originally acquiesced when she and the man who was to be husband were sweethearts. Children who have been sent for by workers on this side of the water must have an avowed protector before they can touch foot on land. The aged and infirm who have been brought across by sons and daughters must be claimed, just as an express package would be. If they are not, they are bundled back, and it devolves upon the steamship company which sold them passage to land them at the port from which they were taken. It seems at first a harsh rule to forcibly send an old man or woman, or a young child back to the land they had just left, the land where they might severed all ties. It would look to be, at first blush, a case where the accused should be given the benefit of the doubt. Instead, the immigrants must prove the charges against him to be groundless. The burden of proof is on him, and the inspectors suspicions are accepted as gospel until they are shown, beyond all peradventure, to be groundless. The principles of criminal law are reversed in the immigration bureau. They have to be. If the inspection was a whit less rigid the (undecipherable) would be filled with paupers of foreign birth. At least the immigrant is given every opportunity to to prove his claims. There is the Board of Inquiry with supervision over the rulings of the inspector, and the Commissioner of Immigration, as the court of dernier resort. Among the immigrants who were detained yesterday was a woman with wrinkles in her face as thick as blind tigers in a prohibition town. She was seventy-seven years old and said her two sons who were working in America had sent for her. The sons had evidently forgotten the commandment which runs “Honor thy father and thy mother,” for they were not to be found yesterday. The old crone was held and climbed down the ladder into the bowels of the ship with tears chasing themselves down her furrowed cheeks. An ancient couple, with children on this side, said they were sixty-six years old. They were also held. A man with something like a wart on his nose was ordered below. He had a card from the Marine Hospital surgeon to the officer that the growth seemed to be of a cancerous nature. Of course, when the doctors were examining him on the first day, he said that the protuberance was painless. To prove it, he thumped his nose as if it had been so much wood. The suspicious looking growth promptly began to bleed. A young girl had come over to get married was uncalled for and she joined the prisoners in the hold. There were reasons of every description for sending the immigrants before the board and it will be a hard matter to unravel the stories of the foreigners. The personnel of the Board of Inquiry will be determined upon by the collector of the port this morning. The board will begin work as early as possible. If they finish this afternoon they will leave tonight. It is unlikley though that they will get through before tomorrow. The Bolivia remained at her moorings last night, but the immigrants detained will not be allowed to hold any intercourse with anybody on shore until their cases are finally passed upon. THE BAGGAGE OF THE NEWCOMERS It was not a very hard matter to inspect the baggage of the immigrants, as fast as their cards were approved by the inspectors in charge. Several customs officers were in the freighthouse, and the belongings of the batches of immigrants as they left the ship, were examined in a jiffy. To begin with, every woman who came over had a small chair. It seemed too small for a grown person and most too large for a doll. In short, the chairs looked more like jokes than anything else. They were all of home manufacture, but the workmanship was clever. They were bottomed with yarn, woven coarsely and strongly. These chairs constituted all the furniture that any of the families had. They were guarded zealously. Very few of the immigrant brought their possessions in trunks or valises. A bag of domestic make, served as a container for all the equipment of a whole family. It was simple to empty the bag on the floor and see what it contained. It usually held a bag of nuts, a dress or so, a pair of shoes for the head of the family, a few coarse undergarments and a lot of yarn for knitting socks and stockings. The few valises - not a single trunk was seen during the course of the day - were the roughest and cheapest kind. All of them, as well as the bags, bore the names of their owners. Her are a few of the names: Rosario d’Aloisio, Giovanna Cuccio, Catarine Montalhano, Andrea di Maggio, Mattia Montelleone, Antonio Andizone, Casacalvo Cavalcante, Girolamo Romano, Giuseppe Sanfilippino, Leonardo de Nina, Melchlore Lazarone, Giullano Cutani, Dorotea Martorana, Benedetto Carmatella. When the customs officials had released the baggage the immigrants were free to go where they pleased. There was a big crowd of Italians at the wagon door of the freighthouse from morning until night, watching and waiting for some relative or expected friend. It was a revelation to look on as they newcomers left the house. Immediately there was a roar of greeting and the immigrant would be covered beneath those who were watching for him. Men kissed men with as much enthusiasm and apparent enjoyment as the average American would display if he were welcoming home an long-absent wife. Babies were tossed high in air and everybody in the mob talked at once. Nearly every man who made the trip from Palermo on the Bolivia kissed the ground as soon as he had disengaged himself from the eager arms that clutched him. This ceremony of kissing the ground was evidently of the utmost solemnity. It was the tribute of the peasant to the soil from which he hoped to gain wealth. THE BOARD OF INQUIRY Yesterday morning the Board of Inquiry charged with the duty of reopening the cases of seventy immigrants from the Britannia, who were rejected at Pensacola, visited the ship in question and went to work at once. Inspector Robinson of Baltimore acted as chairman and Inspector Holman of New York as secretary. Messrs. Campbell and Prudhomme of New Orleans rounded out the board. It took the hardest kind of work until late in the afternoon to complete the task allotted the board. During the morning the Britannia was moored at the head of Terpischore street, but in the afternoon her location was changed. Of the seventy cases reopened, forty-four were reversed and twenty six were affirmed. As the inspectors who were on the board yesterday served in like capacity in Pensacola, when the seventy rejections were made. It may seem strange that four-four rejections were changed and the immigrants admitted. When one knows the circumstances of the cases, however there is nothing strange about it. The Bolivia was expected to land at New Orleans and the immigrants were expected by their American connections here. Instead of landing in New Orleans, however, the vessel landed at Pensacola and none of the Italians who would have been on hand had the inspection been conducted in this port were present. With no evidence at hand it was impossible to prove that the immigrants rejected would not become public charges. Yesterday the necessary witnesses, in the forty-four instances where the immigrants were allowed to land, were in waiting and gave the testimony needful to secure admission for the strangers. In reference to the twenty-six cases which were affirmed, the unfortunate ones may abandon all hope and make up their minds to go home. The Britannia will have to carry them back to Palermo, and she will start as soon as she completes her cargo. A BURIAL AT SEA During the twenty-five years Capt. Craig of the Bolivia has been bringing immigrants to American he has been responsible for the landing of 100,000 foreigners on the shores of the United States. He has made an average of four trips a year, and he has brought across on an average 1000 immigrants a trip. “Immigrants are usually very tractable aboardship,” said he yesterday afternoon. “They seem awed by their strange surroundings, and it is comparatively an easy task to keep them in order. This trip I had even an easier time than usual. One of my cabin passengers was a priest, and when, once or twice, I noticed signs of unrest, I asked him to tell all the immigrants that they would go to perdition if they did not behave themselves. He granted my request, and the immigrants heeded his words. “Immigrants as a rule, have to be humored like so many children. Take death at sea, for instance. It is solemn enough to the bravest man, but with a lot of ignorant, superstitious dagoes, half of who are seasick, a corpse is not a healthy thing to have around. That is why an immigrant is taken away from his bunk the minute he dies and brought aft. That is why an immigrant is always buried at night.” “There was only one death on this trip. A man died of pneumonia. We promptly took the body aft and sweed it up in a canvas. That night there was a little gathering of his relatives on deck (the funeral was kep as quiet as possible), and the priest said a few words over the remains, and then it was slipped overboard and lost under the waves. “Immigrants are well fed at sea,” said Capt Craig. In conclusion: “and strange to say, Italian immigrants, as a rule, fare better than English and Irish immigrants. In the morning an immigrant is given a sea biscuit and a cup of coffee. There is soup, meat, and macaroni for dinner, between 11 and 12 and practically the same bill of fare for supper. They never go hungry, and, as a rule, are in better condition when the voyage is ended than when it began.” File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/la/orleans/newspapers/italiani814gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/lafiles/ File size: 13.0 Kb