GOING THROUGH ELLIS ISLAND 15 



world dainty in undiscerning pleasure ! But the greatest mystery 

 in the lunch box is usually the small round fruit pie. Some carefully 

 raise the crust and extract the contents with a much-used finger. 

 Another whittles it off in slices with a murderous knife a foot in 

 length, while another will carefully eat off all the crust and discard the 

 interior. A bearded Cossack with great care and patience chewed a 

 hole through one corner of a tin of sardines. Then with praiseworthy 

 perseverance, he sucked out the oil ! From the railroad room, the immi- 

 grants are taken in barges to the depot of the railroad on which their 

 journey is to be made. 



Those immigrants Avho are to be deported, or who for any reason 

 must be kept on the island some time, are placed in the detention quar- 

 ters. These are not open to visitors. Tiers of beds are provided, ac- 

 commodating 1,800 persons, but often this number is exceeded by 500. 

 These quarters are among the most interesting points on the island. 

 The women and children of all races and tongues are in one large room, 

 and the men in another. In mild weather they are all sent on to the 

 fine broad roof of the building. Not long ago a Danish woman who 

 could speak no English and whose baby was in the hospital with diph- 

 theria, became a second mother to a coal-black pickaninny, who had 

 come up from Trinidad on a coffee-ship and whose mother was also in 

 the hospital. Again race wars occur among the children, and Turks 

 and Armenians will battle ferociously with Italians. Mention should 

 be made of the large immigrant dining-room which seats 1,100, where 

 the missionary societies hold a polyglot Christmas entertainment each 

 year. 



But the observer at Ellis Island sees only the immigrant stream 

 flowing in. He does not see what results when it has been distributed 

 over the country. No graver questions are before the American nation 

 to-day than those associated with immigration, and none whose correct 

 solution demands more imperative attention. One of these vital ques- 

 tions which is in special prominence just now, is the relation of immi- 

 gration to mental disorders. This question concerns New York state 

 more acutely than other states only because New York has the largest 

 number of alien defectives. 



In February, 1912, there were 33,311 committed insane cases in 

 New York state institutions. It is estimated that more than 8,000 of 

 these or, roughly, 25 per cent., are aliens, and this is exclusive of those 

 conditions of mental defectiveness listed under idiocy, imbecility and 

 feeblemindedness. In the New York schools there are about 7,000 

 distinctly feeble-minded children, or about 1 per cent, of the school pop- 

 ulation. Again this does not include idiots and imbeciles to an equal 

 number, not attending school, nor border-line cases and morally defec- 

 tive children. The total number of feeble-minded children in New 



