124 ALLAN MCLAUGHLIN 



The United States public health and marine hospital service 

 is charged by law with the medical inspection of all incoming 

 aliens at ports of the United States. Officers of the service 

 receive special training for their work as medical inspectors of 

 immigrants. Ellis island, New York, is used by the service 

 as a great school of instruction where young officers, before 

 being detailed for immigration duty at one of the other ports 

 of entry, are trained in the detection of the particular diseases 

 and defects likely to be found in immigrants. Canada has 

 always been a favorite route for undesirable immigrants wish- 

 ing to evade the law, and officers of the pubHc health and 

 marine hospital service are stationed for immigration duty at 

 Quebec and other Canadian ports, and at various points upon 

 the Canadian frontier. Certain steamship lines make a regular 

 business of carrying to Canada, for subsequent entry to the 

 United States, aliens who have been rejected and sent back 

 from an American port, or who manifestly belong to the ex- 

 cluded classes, or who have been rejected by other steamship 

 lines who have some regard for our laws. 



The officers of the pubHc health and marine hospital ser- 

 vice stationed at Quebec, Halifax, N. S., and St. Johns, N. B., 

 have authority to examine only those aliens manifested as 

 destined for the United States through Canada. Immigrants 

 so manifested do not differ materially from immigrants or- 

 dinarily received at United States ports, and are given certifi- 

 cates of physical fitness which admit them to the United States 

 through any of the border points. Thousands of immigrants 

 evade this inspection at Quebec, Halifax, or St. Johns by being 

 falsely manifested as destined finally to Canada. They have 

 no certificates of inspection by United States officers at Quebec, 

 Halifax or St. Johns, and upon attempting to cross the border 

 are sent back to Montreal for examination. 



In order to show the quality of the immigration brought 

 by the Beaver line and other lines engaged in this nefarious 

 business, it is only necessary to state that 50 per cent of the 

 immigrants attempting to cross the border in 1902 were re- 

 jected, whereas the usual percentage of rejection at United 

 States ports is only one per cent. 



A regularly organized system of smuggling diseased im- 



