Medical Inspector's Office
By the terms of the New Passenger Act, 12 and 13 Vict., c.33, no passenger-ship is allowed to proceed until a medical practitioner appointed by the emigration office of the port shall have inspected the medicine-chest and passengers, and certified that the medicines etc are sufficient, and that the passengers are free from contagious disease.
The master, owner, or charterer of the ship is bound to pay the medical inspector the sum of 1 Pound sterling for every 100 persons thus inspected. When the emigrant and his family have undergone this process, their passage-ticket is stamped, and they have nothing further to do, until they go on board, but to make their own private arrangements and provide themselves with outfits, or with such articles of luxury or necessity as they may desire over and above the ships allowance.
All persons who may be discovered to be affected with any infectious disease, either at the original port of embarkation or at any port in the United Kingdom into which the vessel may subsequently put, are to be re-landed, with those members of their families, if any, who may be dependent upon them, or unwilling to be separated from them, together with their clothes and effects.
Passengers re-landed are entitled to receive back their passage-money, which may be recovered from the party to whom it was paid, or from the owner, charterer, or master of the ship, by summary process, before two or more justices of the peace.
Roll-Call
This is one that occupies a considerable space of time, especially in a large ship, containing seven or eight hundred emigrants. The passengers-those in the state cabin excepted-being all assembled upon the Quarter-Deck, the clerk of the passenger-broker, accompanied by the ship's surgeon, and aided in the preservation of order by the crew, proceeds to call for the tickets.
The clerk, or man in authority, usually stands upon the rail, or other convenient elevation on the Quarter-Deck, so that he may be enabled to see over the heads of the whole assemblage-usually a very motley one-comprising people of all ages, from seven weeks to seventy years.
A double purpose is answered by the roll-call-the verification of the passenger-list, and the medical inspection of the emigrants, on behalf of the captain and owners. The previous inspection on the part of the governor was to prevent the risk of contagious disease on board. The inspection on the part of the owners is for a different object.
The ship has to pay a poll-tax of one dollar and a half per passenger to the State of New York; and if any of the poor emigrants are helpless and deformed persons, the owners are fined in the sum of seventy five dollars for bringing them, and are compelled to enter in a bond to the city of New York that they will not become a burden on the public.
To obviate this risk, the medical officer of the ship passes them under inspection; and if there be a pauper cripple among the number who cannot give security that he has friends in America to take charge of him of arrival, and provide for him afterwards, the captain may refuse to take him.