cabin passage, the laws regarding immigrants entering the United States being particularly comprehensive and exacting. On arriving at New York, a passenger steamer stops first in the lower bay and is boarded by the state health officers. If the report of the ship's physician regarding the passengers is satisfactory, and if the inspection of the crew reveals no contagious or infectious disease, the ship proceeds to its company's pier and discharges its cabin passengers and the mails, if it is a mail steamer, after which the immigrants are taken on a tender to the station on Ellis Island, where all steerage passengers must land. Each immigrant is there inspected by officers of the United States Bureau of Immigration. If the immigrant meets all the requirements of the law as regards health and ability to support himself, and is not a criminal, an anarchist, or a laborer imported under contract, and if he can read "the English language or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish," he is allowed to land and proceed to his destination.1 If the immigrant is denied entry into the United States the steamship company that brought him to our shores must return him without cost to the port from which he sailed. The companies are also required to pay, with certain exemptions, a head tax of $8 for every admitted alien brought to the United States by them.

The ocean passenger traffic through the port of New York exceeds that of any other port of the world; but the arrangements provided for cabin passengers are not so convenient as those to be found in numerous other ports, such as Southampton, England, where one may pass directly from steamer to train, and from train to steamer; or such as Liverpool, where all passenger steamers ship and discharge their passengers at a common "landing stage" centrally located.

Vessels engaged in the passenger traffic are required to issue or carry all of the various ship's papers mentioned on pages 176-184 of the preceding chapter except those which appertain exclusively to freight cargoes; and if passenger ships carry freight as well as passengers, as they usually do, they are 1 See Immigration Act of February, 1917.

LIST OF PASSENGERS

(UNDER "THE PASSENGER ACT, 1882," AND ACT FEB. 9, 1005.)

sincerely, and truly

Master of the

do solemnly,

that the following List or Manifest, subscribed by me, and now delivered by me
is a full and perfect list of all the passengers
, from which port said vessel has now

to the Collector of Customs of the Port of.
taken on board the said vessel at
arrived; and that on said list is truly designated the name of each passenger, age (if a child of eight years or
under), sex, married or single, location of compartment or space occupied during the voyage (if the passenger be
other than a cabin passenger), whether a citizen of the United States, number of pieces of baggage, and the name, age,
and cause of death of each deceased passenger, as required by the "Passenger Act of 1882," as amended by the Act
of February 9, 1905. So help me God.

also required to have cargo manifests, and the shippers patronizing them are required to issue or obtain the shipping papers described on pages 158 to 176. The distinctively passenger document required of passenger vessels is the so-called passenger list which the ship's master must deliver to the collector of the port upon arrival. As is shown in Form 17, this list or manifest states the names and sex of all passengers taken on board, whether they are married or single, whether or not they are citizens of the United States, the number of pieces of baggage of each, the age of children eight years or less of age, the date and cause of any deaths occurring en route and the location of the compartment or space occupied by each steerage passenger during the voyage. A similar document is required by foreign governments when vessels arrive at foreign ports.

REFERENCES

House Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Proceedings in the Investigation of Shipping Combinations (4 vols., House Doc. No. 805, 63 Cong., 2 sess., 1914). JOHNSON AND HUEBNER. Railroad Traffic and Rates, II, chap. xxx (1911).

United States (Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce). Statistical Abstract (annual; this publication contains statistics regarding ocean passenger travel and immigration).

CHAPTER XIV

THE OCEAN MAIL SERVICE

Volume of ocean mail, 199.

Cost of transporting foreign mail, 199. Revenues collected in postage, 200. Methods of paying steamship companies, 200. Mail Contract Act, 1891, 200. Mail Contract Act, 1917, 201. Payments for non-contract mail service, 202. Miscellaneous mail transportation expenses and services, 202. International parcels post services, 203. Customs declaration, 206. Domestic parcels post service in foreign trade, 208. Universal Postal Union rates, 208. Special postal rates, 210. Foreign money-order service, 210. Influence of ocean mail service on ocean transportation, 211. References, 212.

DURING the year ending June 30, 1915, 26,241,304 pounds of mail were dispatched from the United States by sea, and it is probable that the weight of incoming mail matter was nearly as much. Over half of the total went to European countries. It is estimated that the number of pieces of mail matter sent and received in the foreign mails (including those carried by rail to and from Canada and Mexico) during the fiscal year 1915 was 581,139,565. The rapidity of the growth of the foreign mail service may be indicated by comparing the figures just given with those for 1890, when the weight of mail matter dispatched oversea was but 4,330,073 pounds, and the total number of pieces in our inbound and outbound foreign mails was 191,413,760.

The total cost of transporting foreign mails from the United States to other countries during 1914 was $3,768,102. The United States paid foreign governments $476,453 for forwarding its mails within their countries, and received from other countries $274,162 for carrying inbound foreign mails across the United States, or to interior points of destination within the country. The actual cost of the foreign mail service, exclusive of the cost of transporting the outbound mail

from interior points to the seaboard post office, was slightly over three and one-half million dollars ($3,565,324) during the fiscal year 1914. The final cost statistics for the fiscal years 1915 and 1916 are not at present available, because of delays in assembling necessary data caused by the war in Europe.

These expenses are more than covered by the postage received. According to the reports of the Postmaster General, the total amount collected in postage on the mails exchanged with all foreign countries was about $11,872,000 in 1914 and $8,863,458 in 1916. The postage collected on articles exchanged with countries other than Canada and Mexico is estimated to have been $8,223,000 in the former and $5,942,241 in the latter year.

METHODS OF PAYING STEAMSHIP COMPANIES

The United States pays the steamship companies that carry the ocean mails in one of two ways: (1) by a contract based upon the length of the route and speed of the vessel, and (2) by a payment based upon the amount of postage received by the United States from the mail carried.

The contract service actually in effect at present is based upon the law passed by Congress, March 3, 1891, which empowers the Postmaster General to make contracts running from five to ten years for the carriage of the mails upon steamers of American register, officered by Americans, and manned by a crew at least one half of whom, after the first five years of the contract, must be composed of American citi

zens.

Steamers are divided into four classes: those in the first class must be iron or steel ships of not less than 8,000 tons gross register, and capable of maintaining at least 20 knots. speed; the second class consists of iron or steel steamers of not less than 5,000 tons gross register and 16 knots speed; the third class of iron or steel steamships of at least 2,500 tons and 14 knots; and the fourth class of iron, steel, or