So saying, he thrust his open palm into her face and forced her back. I got up just in time to set him back on a fig-case and inform him that we had stood for brutality on a foreign soil and on shipboard, but we were through taking it mildly.
“Wot! I’ll fix you for buttin’ in, you —— dago!”
“Hold on, that fellow’s a Secret-Service man. He’s no dago. He speaks too good English,” said another dock man who hurried up to the first man, who had risen and was preparing to “do” me.
His manner changed.
“’Scuse me, mister, but ye see these —— would make anybody mad; they ain’t got no sense at all, don’t mind what you tell ’em, and ’d run all over Hoboken if you let ’em.”
I gave him a little good advice on how to treat well-meaning human beings, and we passed on.
Croatians and Italians—Swedes Arriving—Loading the Barges, New York
In a few minutes we were having one more wrestling-match with the baggage. By this time the customs men had passed our heap, and when I did get an inspector and got it looked into, two trunks were held up for customs charges on account of all the provender packed in them, and the two musical instruments Antonio had bought in Naples were held. Unfortunately the marks of the prices asked by the Neapolitan dealer were still on them, and though Antonio had got them for just about one third, the customs appraiser later set a duty on them that totaled more than half the original cost. When we were through with the trunks, we found that the inspectors had passed over a part of the hand baggage. Two men standing by offered to mark it with chalk just as the inspectors mark it to show it has been inspected, and I was about to allow them to do it and then hand them over when my wife came up with the camera, and they turned and hurried away, going aboard the ship. I think they were either ship’s people, or part of the crew from some other boat at the North German Lloyd piers.
While we were waiting to get an inspector, we had time to buy something to eat from the fruit and cake venders. Though it was mid-October, five cents each was asked for apples to be bought at any street corner in New York for one cent, and ten cents a slice for a thick yellow cake that was the worst mess of coloring-matter, adulterated flour, and soda, I have ever set my teeth into. It was as heavy as a stone and equally gritty. Even the Neapolitan boys would not eat it. On top of all this, when we paid for it in Italian silver money, the venders allowed only seventeen cents for a lire, when taking them at nineteen cents would have been at a profit. Many baskets of such food at such prices were sold to the immigrants that day, for we passed the remainder of the morning and part of the afternoon on the dock, there being four ships laden nearly as heavily as ours in ahead of us, and the barges run by contractors to carry immigrants from the various docks to Ellis Island had more than they could do. So we waited. Few of the people aboard had eaten any breakfast, because it was rumored among them they would land in time for breakfast, and they had been looking forward to a good meal on shore.