Sir : Referring to my No. The latter portion of the article calls attention to the shocking evil of Swiss local authorities getting rid of their unpunished criminals, insane, and helpless paupers at the expense of countries across the Atlantic. Similar cases, not from Switzerland alone, are constantly being reported in the American papers, and I fear that the present regulations for preventing the landing of such persons are either insufficient in their provisions or inefficient in their execution.
As an evidence of this fact, I cite the search made for Daniel Senn, as reported in the New York Tribune of August 15, , from which I copy the inclosed extract. It appears that she combined the elements of pauperism, crime, and insanity in a greater or less degree, and it is stated that on the voyage her presence had been a cause of corruption to the morals of the other emigrants. The other cases above cited, all occurring within the past two and three-fourths years, show that this traffic still continues, and the small number coming under the notice of the legation is clearly due to the penalty which an informant in this country would incur, rather than to the lack of such cases.
In the same number of the Swiss Emigration Gazette is the advertisement of an emigration argent in Basle, announcing that third-class passengers from Havre to New York pay only francs on the steamers of the French Company; that they receive their food, half a bottle of wine a day, bedding, table articles and linen, and are allowed pounds baggage tree, and are insured for 1, francs a head for adults, and children, paying half fare, francs each, and closing with the offer to forward emigrants on the very cheapest terms.
This, if honestly carried out, would show clearly the pecuniary profit to the commune and [Page ] other local officials to indulge in the business of sending us their paupers, criminals, and lunatics, to become a burden to our tax-payers, and a source of contamination and corruption to the honest emigrant who comes to make his home among us.
In his interest, if in no other, this evil should be stopped. The subject is not a new one; the evil has been going on for years. In , with a population of 5,, foreign born, and 32,, native in the United States, there wereβ Among the foreign born. Among the natives.
