The Pauper Emigration Problem
An 1885 editorial complains that Canadian ports are being used as a back door for sick and destitute European immigrants who then drift into New York and New England, and calls for a real enforcement board at every port of entry.
NewsPipe summary
Burlington Weekly Free Press · February 20, 1885 · Page 4
1 min read[…] Part in the United States. To add to the evil, depraved and diseased emigrants are sent to Canadian ports, and from there gradually dispersed over northern New York and New England. It is estimated that the annual cost of supporting these foreign paupers is one hundred dollars a year for each person. Of course the cost of supporting the horde of tramps and imbeciles pouring over our borders every spring is not a small matter.
What is needed to correct this abuse is a well organized and competent board of commissioners to see that the pauper emigration law is thoroughly and faithfully enforced at every gateway of the land. There should be officers at every seaport and every custom house on the line, to see that no foreign paupers or criminals are smuggled into this country. It is of vastly less importance that a case of merchandise should occasionally slip into the United States without paying duty, than that so many cases of irremediable pauperism should be shifted upon the country for support.
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