On the arrival of each vessel at her dock she is boarded by the Immigration Department boarding officer, and the Customs inspector and his assistants; the latter examine the immigrants’ baggage, and sometimes add considerable to Uncle Samuel’s bank account in the way of duties or the confiscation of smuggled articles. Their baggage is then checked and placed on board the transfer boats and barges, which convey them to the Barge Office, where they are examined by a medical staff and then passed to the registration department in that building; here they give their name, age, occupation, nationality, and destination; if they appear as though they were liable to become a public charge, in compliance with an Act of Congress, they are returned, by the same vessel on which they arrived, to the place from which they came. But an opportunity is given to their friends, if any should call, to guarantee that they will not become a public charge, and they are then allowed to leave the department in the custody of their friends. Parties seeking friends call at the information bureau, and if they satisfy the clerk as to their identity they are allowed to take their friends away. On leaving the steamship checks are given to them for their baggage, and it is stored at the Barge Office free of charge, and kept till called for.
There is a railroad ticket office in the Barge Office, where all the trunk lines are represented by one general agent, a sort of pool, and here the immigrant can secure tickets to any point and have baggage checked to destination; and at no other place can tickets be procured at such low rates, nor can anyone but an immigrant get such a low rate. Each immigrant is allowed 150 pounds of baggage free, and the railroad companies transfer them and their baggage from the Barge Office to their respective depots free of charge.
A temporary hospital is located in the Barge Office, where immigrants not seriously ill are kept, and those who may have any serious illness are sent to hospitals under contract with the department for such patients.
Each steamship company was formerly required to pay to the United States Treasury a head tax of $2.50 for each alien steerage passenger; this fee was reduced to $1.00, and some years ago it was still further reduced to fifty cents, the present rate. This tax goes to what is known as the Immigrant Fund.