It was at the station that Antonio’s first wrestling-match with the mountain of the party’s baggage occurred. At Santa Lucia there had been abundant willing hands to pile it on the train, and no other baggage with which to confuse it. Also, nothing had been said about excess charges. At Messina it was ripped open by the city customs officials, then hustled4 from place to place till at last it was dispatched to the North German Lloyd office, and Antonio emerged from the encounter a dripping wreck5 of his former immaculate self. When we next saw it, it was piled into a barge6, and standing7 guard over it was a uniformed government 131official who begged piteously before he departed for enough money to buy his dinner, and was well enough satisfied with thirty centesimi (about six cents).
I have previously8 described the operations of the questura of Messina. Passports in hand, the entire party joined the great mass of people from all parts of eastern Sicily crowded into the steamship9 broker10’s office. Here each person was compelled to make a declaration, which declaration answers the twenty-two questions that are propounded11 regularly at Ellis Island. When the Socosa boys, in answer to the question as to whether they had work promised or not, said that they had, the agent advised them to answer this question in the negative. When Giunta and Curro said they expected no one to meet them, they were advised to get some one, and so on through the group. The steamship broker’s agent, in filling out the blanks of this declaration, thus fortified12 the emigrant13 in the weak places of his case for admission, and if the emigrant is turned back he has no claim for damages against the brokers14. Numbers of suits were formerly15 brought and won, but under the present system none have been successful, and in cases where the returned emigrant is able to pay for the passage on his deportation16 the broker can force him to do so.
It will be noticed that I have used the term broker instead of steamship agent. The explanation will be a revelation to most people in the United States, for I found not long since that officials high in the Bureau of Immigration were not aware of the following facts, which is another bit of proof of how weak our system of dealing17 with immigration from this side of the water is. The steamship company does not book the third-class passengers. Emigration is promoted by 132sub-agents in the villages, such as Carmelo Merlino in Gualtieri, who operate under district agents such as Colajanni in Messina, who are selected, appointed and bonded18 by the Italian government and not by the steamship company. They are responsible to the government and not to the steamship company. They deliver their passengers at so much per head to the steamship company at the foot of the plank19, and a percentage of their receipts finds its way to the government treasury20. They are required to have their offices in what is called a judicial21 town, where there is a questura and the operations of the ticket brokerage system and the police passports dovetail nicely.
The process of clearing all papers, baggage receipts, tickets to the steamer to Naples, tickets to America from Naples, was passed through by our party, and then, it being but little after noon and the hour for going aboard being four o’clock, they scattered22. Many went to homes of relatives in Messina for a final visit. Several of the boys spent unwarrantable sums of their precious money in buying ugly looking knives with which to face the dangers that they had read so much about in the papers, cheap, worthless watches, and clothes that would only be thrown away; and everywhere a group passed some of those parasites23 of the port who prey24 upon emigrants25 and make an effort to wheedle26 or swindle them out of a bit of silver.
DEPARTURE FROM GUALTIERI
“Declaring” in the Messina Office—Party’s Baggage on Lighter—Friends, Neighbors and Relatives
On my first visit to Messina I had the pleasure of intimate knowledge of the discovery of a bold fraud, and the arrest and punishment of the thief. He was a man of fair appearance, who had for three years made a practice of stopping emigrants just before they were about to go aboard the steamer by means of the small boats in the harbor, and demanding if they had had 133their tickets stamped “by the American doctor.” The frightened emigrant, knowing that somewhere in the process he would encounter “the American doctor,” to him an object of dread27, would reply that he had not. The party would then be taken to a small office in an alleyway opening off the water front and a stamp put on the ticket for which the victims would be charged three francs sixty, about seventy cents each. Mr. Charles M. Caughy, the American consul28 at Messina, caught this fellow and saw to it that he was soundly punished. Our party escaped with a few minor29 mishaps30, thanks to the vigilance of Antonio and myself. One of the boys fell a victim to a fake street dentist who had a carriage, a set of tools and a professional air. He related the sufferings with toothache experienced by emigrants on the Atlantic, and advised the extraction of all bad teeth. One old woman from Catania had three taken out at a franc each. While I was trying to get a photograph of the fakir one of our boys got into the carriage, and the dentist was so eager to have me get a good, full view of his face that he yanked out one of the boy’s perfectly31 good teeth. I am glad the film got torn.
We lunched in a little restaurant off the Via Umberto, entertained by really good music from a beggar violinist who was accompanied by a woman and little girl, both of them cursed by trachoma.
We were disappointed in meeting the Papalia family from Montforte-Spadafora, in fact they came on the next steamer, and for some reason Giuseppe Cardillo’s father had decided32 that Giuseppe and his party should wait; thus we lost at the outset some interesting members from our group as planned.
I improved the opportunity to complete some investigations33 134in Messina concerning the smuggling34 of trachomatic emigrants, and will state what I learned in a later chapter, where the information is collected.
The fine Navigazione Generale steamer Reina Margherita was the one on which we were to travel to Naples. She went first to Reggio di Calabrie to get the crowd there gathered from Greece, Syria, Turkey, Apulia and Calabria. There were not many of the Orientals, and a large part of them expected to sail on the Citta di Napoli, of the La Veloce Line, leaving Naples before we did on the Prinzessin Irene. I went over and saw them come aboard, as some of our friends would be there.
Some gay parties came down to the dock in carretas and on foot, singing and beating tambourines35, and one of these brought Gaetano Disalvo, a boy from Scilla going to join his uncle in Buffalo36.
One of the boys with Di Salvo was a lithe37 lad of nineteen who had been a sword-fisherman, a very dangerous occupation pursued in the midsummer months off Scilla. With old Francesco Palmi was his daughter Paolina, a true Calabrese type, and one of the prettiest girls of her class we saw while in Italy. She had been a flower-worker, and was going to New York to marry a man whom she had not seen since she was a little girl, but who had secured “a very fine employment for her paying twenty-eight lire ($5.60) per week.”
When the steamer put back across the Straits to Messina, there was a grand rush to get the emigrants and their baggage aboard. The boatmen who took our party out, though they had been paid by the steamship broker, all such things being included in the 200–lire ticket, demanded and succeeded in getting 135two lire for their ferrying. We were in the first rapids of the systematic38 extortion through which the poor emigrant passes on his way from home to Ellis island, where it stops so suddenly that he is mystified.
It was a striking scene as our last boat put off from the quay39, leaving little Antonio Nastasia’s father, Nicola Squadrito, Giunta’s friends and a few more who had come from Gualtieri, standing in a weeping group in the midst of the many hundreds, waving hats and shouting, “Bon viaggio, bon viaggio!”
It was a rough-and-tumble fight to get aboard with the baggage, and the difficulties were increased by the unnecessary and purposeless brutality40 of the ship’s stewards41. Here began the blows, the jerkings about and the hustlings, which never ceased throughout the whole process till the poor, ignorant people, driven and herded42 like cattle, were in the shelter of Ellis Island.
There was a brigadier of police aboard, and when the women had gone below into their compartment and we were trying to secure beds in the men’s quarters, he followed the women and offered them insults which make my blood boil as I think of it. When I learned of it he had left the ship.
At last we were settled into our places on the lumpy jute mattresses43 covered with coarse, dirty bagging, which served as the bedding in the double-tiered iron bunks44 arranged in blocks eight or nine wide in the middle of the ship, with supplementary45 rows along the sides.
No attempt was made to feed us, and, anticipating such a condition, we had fortunately brought food with us. Despite all their discomforts46, the wilting47 heat and the foul48 smells, I do not remember ever having 136seen a happier crowd of people. On every hand musical instruments were out, and groups were singing or chattering49 like magpies50.
In the dusk the beautiful steamer glided51 out of the harbor by the scores of little groups on the quay at its mouth, and headed up the Straits of Messina for the Bay of Naples, twelve hours away.
While we were on the forecastle head, I noticed little Disalvo come up from below with a long, twisted-up, slender, newspaper in his hands. For a long time he stood by the rail intently watching the shore. When we were off Scilla he lit a match in the shelter of a ventilator and lighted his improvised52 torch, and I realized that he was going to try to signal his friends on shore. I looked to the land and saw a light moving up and down near a cottage south of the town where I knew he lived. But his answer was a failure and nearly a catastrophe53. The strong wind caught the first blaze of the paper and literally54 rent the burning torch apart, sweeping55 the burning fragments aft the length of the ship. Fires were narrowly avoided in two places, and the first officer came down from the bridge and read the horror-smitten boy a terrific lecture.
Far into the night we lay on deck, dreading56 to go below into the reeking57 atmosphere there. When we did at last, the tumult58 of crying babies, of people who could not sleep and so essayed to play harmonicas and sing, was almost unbearable59. The rule of men and women being separated had not been enforced, and so Antonio and I stayed near the women of our party for their protection,—not from the other passengers, but from the ship’s people. At last dawn came, and the haggard look on my wife’s face told me what she had passed through.
137When we went on deck we were within sight of Capri, and two hours later we slid under the shadow of Vesuvius into the beautiful bay of Naples, and when we had snuggled in beside the Palermo steamer at the municipal quay, unloading its throng60 of emigrants before the custom-house, we, too, were dumped off in the hot sun and left for hours in a broiling61 heat to await our turn to be conducted to the first steps of that wonderful and interesting process the emigrant goes through in Naples.
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1
vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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semblance
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| n.外貌，外表 | |
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compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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barge
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| n.平底载货船，驳船 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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steamship
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| n.汽船，轮船 | |
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broker
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| n.中间人，经纪人；v.作为中间人来安排 | |
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propounded
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| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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12
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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emigrant
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| adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民 | |
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brokers
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| n.（股票、外币等）经纪人( broker的名词复数 )；中间人；代理商；（订合同的）中人v.做掮客（或中人等）( broker的第三人称单数 )；作为权力经纪人进行谈判；以中间人等身份安排… | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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deportation
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| n.驱逐，放逐 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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bonded
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| n.有担保的，保税的，粘合的 | |
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plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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parasites
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| 寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫 | |
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prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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wheedle
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| v.劝诱，哄骗 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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consul
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| n.领事；执政官 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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mishaps
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| n.轻微的事故，小的意外( mishap的名词复数 ) | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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tambourines
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| n.铃鼓，手鼓( tambourine的名词复数 )；（鸣声似铃鼓的）白胸森鸠 | |
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buffalo
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| n.(北美)野牛；(亚洲)水牛 | |
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lithe
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| adj.(指人、身体)柔软的，易弯的 | |
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systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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quay
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| n.码头，靠岸处 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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41
stewards
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| （轮船、飞机等的）乘务员( steward的名词复数 )； （俱乐部、旅馆、工会等的）管理员； （大型活动的）组织者； （私人家中的）管家 | |
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herded
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| 群集，纠结( herd的过去式和过去分词 )； 放牧； （使）向…移动 | |
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mattresses
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| 褥垫，床垫( mattress的名词复数 ) | |
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bunks
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| n.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的名词复数 )；空话，废话v.（车、船等倚壁而设的）铺位( bunk的第三人称单数 )；空话，废话 | |
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supplementary
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| adj.补充的，附加的 | |
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discomforts
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| n.不舒适( discomfort的名词复数 )；不愉快，苦恼 | |
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wilting
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| 萎蔫 | |
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foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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49
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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50
magpies
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| 喜鹊（magpie的复数形式） | |
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51
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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52
improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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53
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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54
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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55
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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dreading
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| v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的现在分词 ) | |
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reeking
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| v.发出浓烈的臭气( reek的现在分词 )；散发臭气；发出难闻的气味 (of sth)；明显带有（令人不快或生疑的跡象） | |
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tumult
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| n.喧哗；激动，混乱；吵闹 | |
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unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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broiling
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| adj.酷热的，炽热的，似烧的v.（用火）烤（焙、炙等）( broil的现在分词 )；使卷入争吵；使混乱；被烤（或炙） | |
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