than that they had fallen into the clutches of the sharks of the land.* At length, in 1855, the Commissioners succeeded in establishing Castle Garden as the landing-place for all emigrants arriving at New York ; and among other benefits which, in their report of that year, they enumerate as resulting from the possession of this grand convenience, they include the dispersion of a band of outlaws, at tracted to this port by plunder, from all parts of the earth. The outlaws were perhaps not so effectually dispersed as the Commissioners fondly imagined them to be; for so persistent were the attacks upon the system established at Castle Garden attacks made generally tnrough the public press that the Grand Jury of the County of New York was formally appealed to. Nominally investigating certain charges made against the employees of the railway companies doing business in Castle Garden, the Grand Inquest really enquired into the entire system ; and the result of that timely investigation was of the ut most consequence, in strengthening the hands of the Com missioners, and confounding their interested maligners. On inquiry, they said, into the causes of certain published attacks on the Emigrant Landing Depdt, the Grand Inquest have become satisfied that they emanate, in the first instance, from the very in terested parties against whose depredations Castle Garden affords pro tection to the emigrant, and who are chiefly runners in the employ of booking-agents, boarding-house keepers, and others, who have lost custom by the establishment of a central dep6t, where the railway
- The following, from the statement of Mr. Vere Foster, to which reference has
already been made, represents the state of things existing in 1850, and while exhibiting the terrible injury inflicted on the inexperienced and defenceless emigrant, affords a conclusive testimony in favour of an official landing-place, where passengers arriving at Xew York could be protected from those who regarded them as their lawful prey : 3rd December. A few of the passengers were taken ashore to the hospital at Staten Island, and we arrived alongside the quay at Xew York this afternoon. The 900 passengers dispersed, as usual among the various fleecing houses, to le partially or entirely disabled for pursuing their travels into the interior in search of 1 employment.
