[Sidenote: Ship Landing]
At last the voyage is done, your steamship lies at her pier, and you are
thrust into the midst of distractions. Families are trying to keep
together; the din is indescribable; crying babies add to the general
confusion of tongues; all sorts of people with all sorts of baggage are
making ready for the landing, which seems a long time off as you wait
for the customs officers to get through with the first-class passengers.
At last word is given to go ashore, and the procession or pushing
movement rather begins. You are hurried along, up a companionway,
lugging your hand baggage; then down the long gangway on to the pier and
the soil of America.
[Sidenote: Unnecessary Cruelty]
It is not a pleasant landing in the land of light and liberty. You have
been sworn at, pushed, punched with a stick for not moving faster when
you could not, and have seen others treated much more roughly. Just in
front of you a poor woman is trying to get up the companionway with a
child in one arm, a deck chair on the other, and a large bundle besides.
She blocks the passage for an instant. A great burly steward reaches up,
drags her down, tears the chair off her arm, splitting her sleeve and
scraping the skin off her wrist as he does so, and then in his rage
breaks the chair to pieces, while the woman passes on sobbing, not
daring to remonstrate.
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