112 



known, nor, indeed, how many have perished in Canada West; but 

 coupling all those who have perished with those who have passed 

 into the United States, Canada cannot now number 50,000 souls of 

 the 90 odd thousands which landed upon our shores. In sketching 

 a retrospect of these terrific scenes, the Montreal committee forcibly 

 remark — " From Grosse Isle, the great charnel house for victimized 

 humanity, up to Port Sarnia — along the borders of our magnificent 

 river, upon the shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and wherever the 

 tide of immigration has extended, are to be found the final resting- 

 places of the sons and daughters of Erin — one unbroken chain of 

 graves, where repose fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, in 

 one commingled heap, without a tear bedewing the soil, or stone to 

 mark the spot. Twenty thousand and upward have gone to their 

 graves, and the whole appears, to one not immediately interested, 

 'like a tale that is told.' ' : 



The disease of which the emigrant passengers, and in many in- 

 stances, the officers and crews of ships, perished at sea, and of which 

 a great number were ill on their arrival in the United States and 

 Canada, was typhus in its genuine form. In some ships dysentery, 

 small-pox and measles swelled the amount of mortality, and added to 

 the number of sick that reached the ports of destination. From some 

 ships upwards of 100 ill were landed at the New York quarantine 

 station ; and so great was the influx of sick and destitute emigrants, 

 during the summer of the last year, that the public and private hos- 

 pitals and almshouse were filled to overflowing, and sheds and 

 tents were erected for their accommodation. In stating these things 

 we cannot withhold the grateful remark that, in providing these 

 accommodations, and furnishing other means of comfort, the same 

 spirit of benevolence was manifested, which animated our country- 

 men in sending ships laden with supplies of food to the famishing in 

 Ireland. 



The number of persons admitted into the marine hospital at Staten 

 Island, in the year 1847, was 6,932. Of this number, 5,277 were sick 

 with fever, and GG2 died. In that hospital, 2,229 cases were registered 

 as typhus fever, of which 457 died, and 3,020 as remittent and 

 typhus remittent fever, of which 205 died. There is reason to be- 

 lieve that many of these latter cases, landed from emigrant ships, 

 were typhus; but excluding these, the total number of deaths from 

 typhus at the quarantine hospital and within the city of New York, 

 was scarcely less than 2,000. 



But besides those admitted into the hospitals immediately after 



