Here your baggage is checked and your ticket provided, a bag of food is
offered you, and then you are taken on board a barge which will convey
you to the railroad station. You have left your fellow-voyagers
abruptly, all save the railroad-ticketed like yourself. Had you been
destined for New York, you would have gone down the left stairway and
been free to take the ferryboat for the Battery. If you had expected
friends to meet you, the central stairway would have led you to the
waiting room for that purpose. Those three stairways are called "The
Stairs of Separation," and there families are sometimes ruthlessly
separated without warning, when bound for different destinations.
[Sidenote: Careful Supervision]
The officers, who have treated you courteously, in strong contrast to
the steamship and dock employees, keep track of you until you are safely
on board an immigrant car, bound for the place where your relatives are.
Your ideas of great New York are limited, but you have been saved by
this official supervision from being swindled by sharpers or enticed
into evil. You are practically in charge of the railway company, as you
have been of the steamship company, until you are deposited at the
station where you expect to make your home.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68