ATLANTIC SCANDALS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9709, 3 February 1910, Page 4

ATLANTIC SCANDALS.

Appalling steerage conditions on many of the trans-Atlantic liners are alleged in a report sent to the American Senate by the Immigration Commission. These conditions, the report states, exist in some instances in spite of the fact that the letter of the law is obeyed implicitly. For that reason more effective remedial

legislation is recommended. The Commission transmits the report of its own special agents, giving their experiences on board steamships when they posed as steerage passengers. Summing up one such trip, a woman agent of the Immigration Commission said:—"During these twelve days in the steerage I lived in disorder and in surroundings that offended every sense. Only the fresh breeze from the sea overcame the sickening odours, the vile language lof the men, the screams of women defending themselves, and the crying of children wretched because their surroundings irritated them beyond endurance. There was no sight before which the eye did not prefer to close Everything was dirty, sticky, and disagreeable to the touch. Every impression was offensive. For fifteen hours each day I witnessed all around me the improper and*indf<cent forced mingling of men and women who were total strangers, and often did not understand one word of the same language. People cannot live in such surroundings and not be influenced." The agents of the Immigration Commission say that on many steamers the male stewards and the mem- | bers of the crew, as well as male steerage passengers, crowd into compartments set aside for women, and constantly pass through the passage way of such compartments, so that no woman in the steerage "had a moments privacy." It is stated that during the hour prec®ding the breakfast bell, while women were rising and dressing, several men usually passed through and returned for no ostensible reasons. Much of the report concerning the unsanitary conditions of the old type of steerage ship is unprintable. The Commission says:-—"The universal human needs iof space, air, food, sleep, and privacy are recognised to a degree now made compulsory by law. Beyond that, the persons carried are looked upon as so much freight, with mere transportation as their only due." The sleeping quarters are described as being in many cases filthy, inadequate, and all that is bad.