One of the witnesses, T.R.  Schoger enters into some details. 1.  The first fraud, he says, practised on emigrants is this:—­the moment the vessel arrives it is boarded by runners, whose first object appears to be to get emigrants to their respective public houses.  Once there they are considered sure prey.  There are, of course, rival establishments; each has agents (runners) and bullies.  There is often bloodshed between them.  The emigrant is bewildered.  He is told he will get meals for sixpence a piece—­he never gets one less than two shillings, and he is often charged a dollar a meal. 2.  The next ordeal is called booking; that is, he is taken to the forwarding office, and told it is the only office, the proprietors being owners of boats, railways, etc.  The runner gets one dollar for everyone booked. 3.  The next imposition is at Albany; it is there the great fraud is perpetrated.  If they find the emigrant has plenty of money they make him pay the whole passage over again,—­repudiating all that was done at New York. 4.  The next is the luggage.  It is falsely weighed, and the emigrant is often made to pay five or six times more than the proper charge.  “The emigrant,” adds Mr. Schoger, “now thinks himself out of his difficulty, but finds himself greatly mistaken.  The passengers are crowded like beasts into the canal boat, and are frequently compelled to pay their passage over again, or be thrown overboard by the captain."[299] The mates of the ships often took the property of emigrants; their locks were picked and their chests robbed; for none of which outrages was there the slightest redress.[300]

Before the legislature took any effective action in protecting the emigrants who landed at New York, many philanthropic and benevolent societies were formed for that purpose.  Of those societies one Hiram Huested gave the following testimony on oath:  “I am sure, there is as much iniquity amongst the emigrant societies as there is amongst the runners."[301]

What with shipwrecks, what with deaths from famine, from fever, from overcrowding; what with wholesale robbery, committed upon them at almost every step of their journey, it is matter for great surprise indeed, that even a remnant of the Famine-emigrants survived to locate themselves in that far West, to which they fled in terror and dismay, from their humble but loved and cherished homes, in the land of their fathers.  The Irish race get but little credit for industry or perseverance; but in this they are most unjustly maligned, as many testimonies already cited from friend and foe, clearly demonstrate.  If one more be wanting, I would point to a fact in the history of the worn-out remnant of our Famine-emigrants, who had tenacity of life enough to survive their endless hardships and journeyings.  That fact is, the large sums of money which, year after year, they sent to their friends—­every penny of which they earned by the sweat of their brow—­by their industry and perseverance.