THE EMBARKATION PROCESS
In the morning we were up early, and after a very indifferent breakfast
got our hand luggage together and departed from the Albergo della Rosa.
At the door we were beset by fruit-venders with their long barrows, and
small tradesmen with all sorts of trifles that they convinced our people
were indispensable on the voyage; and I really believe that between the
lodging-house and the steamship-broker’s offices that portion of the
party which lagged behind where I could not control them bought forty or
fifty lire worth of stuff that was worse than useless, being merely a
burden and a care.
At the steamship-broker’s offices an enormous crowd was gathered. Two
thirds of them had no real occasion to go there, but if one member of a
party was not right in his papers, or imagined he was not, all the party
went with him to avoid being separated. We had some baggage checks to
see about. It seemed that there was not one hour of our journey from
Gualtieri to our American destination which was not embittered by the
mishaps of that baggage, and as I write, months after, some of it is
still missing. I have had thoughts about it that were deeper than the
greatest depths of profanity, and more far-reaching than the extent of
the combined English and Italian languages in blasphemous reference.
We passed down the Vico di Via Porta and along the Marina, a veritable
tumult of sailing-day traffic.
A highly picturesque _carreta_ loaded with emigrants and their friends
on their way to the Capitaneria from their country home came jogging by
and paused long enough to be kodaked.
Near the railroad tracks we came upon a group that was both laughable
and pathetic. It was one of the places of sudden and forced sale of
household effects of emigrants. Some of the foolish people will bring,
even from provinces more distant than the Campania, quantities of
household goods, furniture, etc., and their hearts are almost broken
when they find they cannot take it aboard. They have felt sure that
there must be some little corner on such a big ship in which they can
place a half-dozen two-hundred-years-old hand-made chairs, or a
five-foot bureau, or so small a matter as a table large enough to
accommodate a family of the usual Italian size. However, here was a pile
of it, heaped up indiscriminately, and about and on it were beggars who
had bargained to look after it, or owners who had decided to remain and
guard their own.
When we arrived within the iron enclosure of the Capitaneria we found
that the first thing to demand attention was of course the baggage. It
was already getting hot, and the large space of open, unsheltered dust
in front of the Capitaneria was strewn with luggage of all shapes and
sizes. There were huge wooden chests, bundles of bedclothes and
blankets, casks of wine, kegs of olives, and cheese and butter, and
quantities of small bags like my own. All such were already tumbling to
pieces, being but cloth and paper pasted over frail wooden frames, and
made on purpose to be sold to emigrants at ten times their value. Men
went about selling grass ropes with which to tie them up.
First of all we had to get the baggage together and separate the hand
baggage from the hold baggage; then the latter must all be opened up
before the American consular agent and inspected, numbered, and listed;
next inspected by the port health authorities; then received and
receipted for by the company’s agents; and what with wild efforts of the
emigrants to go backward through the process, to get shut trunks that
had been opened and shaken up in inspection, and to get through before
the steamer should leave, it was a scene to wring a man’s soul. If any
of our party had any trouble, they came to Antonio or to me with it.
Antonio went about holding his head as if he was afraid it would burst,
and all the emigrants about us kept an eye on the big ship; not due to
sail for hours yet, as if they were afraid to see it start off, like a
train, at any moment.
This section of the toil and turmoil being over at last, we found that
we had to carry our encumbrances to the south side of the Capitaneria
and embark on a small steamer which would take us over to the
fumigating-station, half a mile across the harbor, on the breakwater. It
was an hour before we were properly assembled at this embarkation point,
and the women were already almost succumbing to the dust and heat.
The little steamers were not much more than barges with donkey-engine
power in them, and emigrants and baggage were piled in till it seemed
they would swamp the craft. The men in charge of the boats knocked the
emigrants about in a shameful fashion, without regard to their being
men, women, or children, and the fear of “getting into trouble” caused
the emigrants to take it all without resentment.
I observed many emigrants who had come to the point for embarkation on
these little steamers, taking their baggage back without going to the
fumigating-station, and a little careful watching showed me that certain
furtive Neapolitans were directing them. The little groups paused a
moment just outside the door of the police station in the south side of
the Capitaneria and then hurried on around to the north side with the
baggage.
I purposely put myself in the way of one of the sneaking Neapolitans and
asked some question concerning the baggage.
“You do not need to go over there for fumigation and inspection if you
do not want to,” he said.
“Is that so? How can we avoid it?”
“I know some men who will put on the labels that they put on over there,
and no one will know you have not been there.”
I thought best to call Antonio to engineer the deal by which I hoped to
trap this gang, which I could see must be counterfeiting official seals.
He went aside with the Neapolitan, and soon turned away shaking his
head. I called to him and asked what was the trouble. He said the
Neapolitan wanted fifty lire for our eleven pieces of hand baggage. The
other had already gone. I told Antonio to offer him twenty and I would
pay it. Antonio offered fifteen and the Neapolitan accepted.
[Illustration: At the Doorway of the Capitaneria—Author’s Party on the
Quay]
Soon a man I had not seen before appeared and beckoned to us, and we
toiled with our loads over to the south side of the Capitaneria, set our
baggage down in a row against the building, and in an instant a cordon
of guards, four in number, was stationed about us. They came out of the
crowd like summoned spirits. No words passed. A fifth man appeared, and
with lightning-like rapidity affixed to the baggage, by lifting up the
tacked ends of straps, or prying open the tiny lead billets themselves,
little metal seals impressed with the seal of the Italian government. It
was the work of but a few seconds, interrupted once by the appearance of
a pompous uniformed police officer who walked right by the baggage
without noticing anything unusual in progress. The guards had given a
quick signal as he appeared, and the groups seemed most ordinary. A
sixth man appeared with a paste-brush and some little red labels. With
one movement only he pasted each piece of baggage, and a seventh man,
following him, affixed some large yellow labels bearing the United
States consular seal. The eighth man was the one I had first seen; he
appeared to be the _capo_ or chief of the gang.
Meanwhile I had made careful mental notes of the eight men. I was
determined to get some or all of them into the proper hands. As soon as
they were through they all hurried away, mingling with the crowd without
waiting for their pay. That seemed odd.
We carried our baggage around to the other side of the Capitaneria, and
there stood the eighth man, really the best dressed of the lot, and
signed to us to put our baggage inside a gate where two policemen were
on guard, without going to a stand where men in the service of the
United States consular service were pasting on genuine yellow labels on
such baggage as had been over to the fumigating-station.
As we passed our baggage through the gate a boy marked each piece with a
number, gave us a check, and it was all piled in rows on the ground,
inside the fence, under police guard.
Straightening up with a sigh of relief at having passed the danger line
so far as the fraudulent baggage was concerned, and free from our
encumbrances for a while at least, I found the eighth man at my elbow.
He said we must now go and be vaccinated. This was something I did not
care about, nor did my wife. We each needed both arms in good condition
for some time to come, but as I looked at my health ticket I saw there
was a space on the back where there must be the vaccination stamp.
“For a lire I will tell you how to keep from getting a sore arm,” said
the thief beside me. I gave him the lire.
“When the doctor vaccinates you, rub your shirt sleeve down over the two
scratched places quickly; then suck them. He will not stop you.”
In the middle of the open rough lot, very similar to half-ploughed
ground, which lay out beyond the Capitaneria fence, stood a small
building with a big door. Crowds of emigrants were struggling around it.
Venders of water-ice, lemons, fruit, etc., were in the midst of the
crowd, holding their stands with one hand to keep them from being
knocked over while they dealt out wares, made change, and talked with
the other.
When we had fought our way inside at last, the crowd that was let in
with us took seats all around the room in a row. Three doctors sat on a
raised dais at one side. One did the vaccinating, the others the
clerical end of the work. I believe they took turns. The moment we
entered, the vaccinating doctor caught sight of my wife, and, advancing
politely, addressed her in German. He thought her an Austrian, and
afterward confessed that he believed her to be a Moravian missionary. He
was a very amiable sort of fellow, with a fine education, both general
and professional, I should judge.
With a gallantry which might not have been so effusive if he had
suspected that she had a husband present, he vaccinated my wife first,
and she removed the virus with haste.
At the sight of the fierce-looking old man putting down the bared point
of steel on my wife’s bare arm the women shrieked and the children began
to cry. Little Anastasia made a break for the door, but a guard blocked
his exit. Others fought to get out. The other doctors reassured them;
and after much difficulty all in the room were vaccinated, every member
of our party following the advice of the thief. Concetta was as white as
milk from fright and horror.
Outside, the thief informed us that we would not be required to go back
to the Capitaneria just yet, but I did not believe him until I had asked
one of the guards, for I mistrusted the thief because he had not asked
for the pay for the job done by the gang. Now he asked us to leave the
vicinity of the Capitaneria and go to a nice place with him to get
something to eat. I refused, and then he demanded his money. If we had
gone with him he would have put up some game that would have wrung a few
lire from us at least, and, if we had been as stupid as his usual
victims, perhaps all that we had. He not only demanded the amount agreed
upon, but three times as much. He threatened to get us arrested for
having fraudulent labels on our baggage. Antonio was scared to the
rigidity of a poker, and all the others were trembling like leaves. But
his bluff was not equal to American _aplomb_, and in a few minutes he
went off with ten lire and no more. I knew we would have no trouble from
him, and was anxious to get rid of him so as to be able to communicate
with the American consul and secure the arrests I had in mind.
Even though the _capo_ had left us, I observed that we were duly
watched, and, try as I would, I could not get a message away unobserved.
I could not leave the party myself, nor could I send any of them, they
being strange to the city. I began to despair.
It was now time to return to the Capitaneria for the final examination,
and to go aboard if we passed. I knew I should see St. Ledger there, but
it might be too late.
We made our way in at the front entrance, and were compelled to stand
for a long time in the crowd. There the _capo_ joined us once more. He
had shed his ill humor as a snake sheds its skin. One of the boys
brought to me the report of a case in which I was interested. It was
that of Mrs. Vincenzo Tortora, a woman who had been in New York and
lived with her husband at No. 3 Elizabeth Street, and had returned to
visit her home in a village back of Naples. She had with her a
two-and-a-half-year old boy born in the United States. Some time before,
she had endeavored to return to the States, but the doctors had refused
to allow her to do so because the child had contracted trachoma. I saw
the woman and talked with her, and found that she had come down to
Naples to see the “underground men,” who had agreed to put her through
for 300 lire. They had told her to go back, that she could not go on a
North German Lloyd steamer, but must go by a certain line when they sent
for her. While I was talking to her the _capo_ came over, having heard
the boy who had reported the case to me telling Antonio about it, and he
assured the woman that if she had come twenty-four hours sooner he would
have sent her over on the _Prinzessin Irene_ for 100 lire.
I drew him into talk about the underground system for diseased
emigrants, and he said that there were doctors in Naples who could so
relieve trachoma in forty-eight hours that if the emigrant kept up the
treatment he or she could get by the doctors at New York or Boston. The
eyes would be worse than before after the treatment was stopped, and, if
continued too long, would cause blindness. Those emigrants who could not
be doctored up temporarily were sent through, however.
“How sent through?”
For answer a shrug of the shoulders and—“Oh, pay some money to some
people!” Always that evasive, baffling answer.
However, having heard of the system in Messina, on the steamer, and in
the city of Naples, and now seeing such palpable signs of it right in
the shelter of the Capitaneria, I began for the first time to believe
what I could scarcely credit before,—that the “gold-paved avenue”
leading into my beautiful, healthy home country, for the loathsomely and
contagiously diseased, did exist. I set on foot at that point some
investigations not yet ripe, and I may never harvest them; but if I do
not some one else will sooner or later “get on the inside.” I shall
later prove beyond a doubt that there is a door for diseased aliens.
Another flagrant abuse which I should mention here was that of supposed
bankers’ agents inducing emigrants to buy New York drafts for the safety
of their money. One man was going about cautioning the emigrants to
invest in drafts, and another followed him offering drafts. The first
man came up to me, after some of our boys had been approached by him and
had referred him to me.
“Who are you?” I asked, feigning stupidity.
“The chief of police,” he said,—and I laughed in his face.
However, many were caught in the scheme, among them a boy I had taken an
interest in, a lad named Salvatore Biajo, bound for St. Louis. He had
100 lire in gold and eight in silver, and bought a draft. The draft was
all right, being on the Bank of Naples, but the man who sold it to him,
instead of making it for 108 lire minus a few centesimi for discount,
put it in dollars, writing in only $19 when it should have been about
$21.35 according to Post & Flagg’s Ellis Island rate. The gang of
draft-sellers made two dollars off young Biajo, and if they made as much
off the hundreds of others who bought, they did a fine day’s business.
At last we were ready to move on, and, still accompanied by our thieving
friend, who evidently wanted to see me safe where he thought I could do
him no harm, and where I might pay him a little more for valuable
information, we entered the great north pen in the Capitaneria, where
emigrants in hundreds were standing, with their passports out, in a
solid mass held back by police, who peeled off the front row from right
to left, then back again; and we filed across the room to a door in the
corner where was the American staff, the port doctor, the surgeons on
duty for the United States Marine Hospital Corps, the ship’s surgeon,
and some others.
We were examined; our eyelids were turned up for trachoma; our heads
rubbed over for favus; any defective-looking parts of the body touched
for hidden disease; and every now and then a man, woman, or child would
be told to stand aside for further examination, and a wail would go up
from the group to which that one belonged. It was as if a touch of death
had come among them.
I saw one old man who had taken his wife and widowed daughter with her
two children, sold all his little property, and was starting for America
to open up a little business of some sort, pulled out of the line,
examined for some spinal trouble, and turned down. The family could not
go without him, so they were all turned back. There were two or three
other cases like that, which happened there before my eyes. Last year we
turned back over 20,000, including dependent relatives, at our ports and
borders. They should never have been allowed to leave home. That is
where our system is wrong. The emigrant should not be selected at the
port of arrival, nor at the port of embarkation, but by a small visiting
itinerant board that should come to him in his home community. We would
thus get none of the bad and lose none of the good, and a hundred
outrages would be avoided. The fuller argument I hope to give with the
light of facts yet to be told.
When we appeared at the bar of the police official who inspects all
passports, I made our presence known to Mr. St. Ledger, and after a word
from him to the official we were passed, went by the place where the
police were taking weapons from suspected bad men, and out into the
enclosure where our baggage was. Against the fence I saw the face of the
_capo_ of the gang of thieves and counterfeiters.
Under a pretext I got the party halted, re-entered the building,
followed by the perplexed St. Ledger, and, when inside, where the
thieves’ sentinels could not see, I unfolded the plot I had discovered.
In a word, before the ship sailed I had the pleasure of seeing the
_capo_ and two others in the hands of detectives, and the others would
have been captured had not the port doctor, the instant he was informed
of it, rushed up to me in full view outside in the baggage enclosure,
followed by half a dozen officers, and at the sight the thieves flew
like birds.
The port doctor refused to allow our baggage to go aboard, as it was
fraudulently passed; but in the end I got it into his dull head that if
he did as he threatened, kept us there to testify, and held our baggage
for evidence, he would not get any testimony from us; and when
sufficient consular pressure had been brought to bear to show him that
we had been parties to the fraud in order to catch the counterfeiters
and make the case, he relinquished his hold on us and our belongings. We
found sixty-eight other pieces of baggage, with the fraudulent labels
on, in the enclosure. They could be told by a slight imperfection in the
red labels. The yellow counterfeits of the United States seals were
perfect.
At last we were free to go aboard.