Foreign Paupers

Although there is an act of Congress providing that all paupers, imbeciles, lunatics and victims of incurable disease, arriving as immigrants at American ports, shall be immediately carried back in the ships which brought them, and although this law is partially enforced at some of the principal seaports of the country, it is still undoubtedly the fact, as stated in the annual report of the New York Board of Charities for 1884, that great numbers of foreign paupers are smuggled into this country, and forced upon our charitable institutions, for no other purpose than to get rid of the expense of maintaining them at home.

The United States offers an unusually tempting opportunity to unscrupulous foreign nations of disposing of their surplus population under the most favorable conditions. Besides being the acknowledged asylum for the oppressed, the poor and the liberty-loving races of all countries, the United States has probably the most complete and best organized system of charities of any nation in the world, with the possible exception of England.

Until the act of Congress referred to was passed, the United States was absolutely at the mercy of the unscrupulous emigration societies of the Old World. Shipload after shipload of the refuse of European slums, and the very inmates of reformatory institutions, were sent to our ports as a deliberate contribution to our criminal and pauper classes. The evil became so intolerable that Congress could not ignore it longer. The act excluding paupers, lunatics and criminals was passed, and the flood partially stayed.

But the evil is only partially remedied. It appears from the report of the New York State Board of Charities for 1884, that during the year the Board has [...]