On your way from the Statue of Liberty, somehow or other always associated with the new-arrived emigrant, "the symbol of the land of freedom to which he's come," and such sort of thing, you know, you catch sight of the squat black vessel of the Department of Labor which serves as a link for Ellis Island.

To reach this boat you pass through the big building serving as United States barge office, and must show a card or give a good reason why you would visit the Island, or you cannot pass. On the dock behind, trucks with the baggage of detained immigrants and so on, tempt the curious, but already you feel a general sentiment

been kept there since the world-war opened, the United States refusing them admission and, on the other hand, the steamship companies being unable to return them, on account of the war. Meanwhile the steamers pay their board and keep, out there on Ellis Island.

Ellis Island, it is estimated here, is perhaps a mile and a quarter distant from this dockage; according as these ports such persons as it does allow to boats must go. The government transvisit, freely; and, aside from officials, the passengers consist largely of kin, come to visit detained immigrants or immigrants in the hospital there; or,

again, to claim such newcomers and the like.

You, who are of such elect, pass over a drawbridge and onto the boat. The vessel is equipped with broad, circling lower deck, fenced about and with plenty of benches about both its sides. and superstructure proper. There is a superfluity of life preservers, evidently, aboard, and you wonder if there seem much fear of accident to require on this craft, the real "Gateway to America" to so many.

While you wonder, you study your fellow travelers. On the lower deck, here at the front, there is a young Swedish woman going out to claim a

the shipping and harbor, and, ere long, you follow suit. You remark the Statue of Liberty ahead, off at the right, here; you note the endless barges with the railway cars; you remark a great ocean liner coming in with more folk for the Island.

A wee Italian girlie of three tempts the kodak, as she studies New York behind her, then, ahead, the familiar red and white buildings of Ellis Island arise. The domes, as in rococo style, at the corners of the buildings of the immigration service; the arched entryways that serve to admit the newarrived immigrant from the liners, that he may be halted here for inspec

IMMIGRANT TYPES.

You land, take the drawbridge, and find yourself in a great frame structure, where signs indicate: "Entrance for all persons calling for emigrants."

Already the where you may and where you may not go begins to be very carefully defined. Like some fort in Europe, you may only take certain paths and, while on these, too, it behooves you to beware.

Not coming for emigrants, you do not take that entry, but continue on, at the side of it. "All persons calling on official business" greets, and there, then, you make your way. You aren't quite certain if sightseeing is official business; but they can't do more than put you out, you say. Wherefor, you pass up this entryway, walk up the left shipside, and come to the great red structure housing the offices of the commissioner, with lawns and hedges out before, that make the post a delightful place to toil.

It is all cut out for you where you go and what you shall do. You enter the big building and find yourself in a goodly chamber with white tiled flooring, white bricked walls extending to perhaps half the way to the ceiling. At

the side, you meet a series of desks, to these there extends another series of aisles, formed by ropes, and in these many folk, foreigners, evidently, are taking place and so coming, one by one, to those desks. You should like to know what it's all about, but an officer asks your own desires and at once directs that you pass on by a way he shows. You leave the big room through a passage leading to the inner part of the building; en route, such signs as "Missionaries," "Steamer Agents," "U. S. Customs," do tempt to investigate. Instead, you travel squarely to an elevator that bears you to the office of the United States commissioner.

It is given us, in the day's work, to meet many officials of this western republic of ours, to which the oppressed of eastern nations cross the seas; and usually, to the press at least, we find that they consider themselves the public servants, and with things to show of which they as custodians can be proud.

But at Ellis Island, alas and alack! It's your disgrace that you haven't seen all this before; why, there's been so much written about the place that there's not a thing left to tell, and let you know you're a nuisance they while they do not say so openly, they don't quite dare turn down, and the sooner rid of you the better for all. In short, you already realize that you must make the best of what scraps of information they will deign to allow you.

Thus, in that office, the acting commissioner explains that when an alien, come here, is excluded, he is ordered returned to the country he came from, at the steamer's expense. It was found, once the war abroad reached its zenith, that in deporting these immigrants, many of them must cross the war zone, and this would imperil their lives. Therefore a humanitarian government here resolved, instead, to hold

them, and so a little colony was gathered here.

Could you see these?

Hopeless question. Latterly there had been a slight let-up in the dangers to all routes of passage, and so they had been authorized, now, to deport these. Some had been here a year, some a year and a half; it was estimated that it cost about twenty cents to maintain each person of the sort here, per day.

Thus, with request neither refused nor granted, you were directed to the superintendent, in an office very closely

next door. The walls of the office were hung with pictures of varied types of immigrants, and you looked out, the while, on buildings of who knew what ends. You waited; and meanwhile an interpreter was explaining the quest of a Serb here, who had come to inquire as to his brother, and whether he'd arrive this morning, or afternoon.

The superintendent, when you reach him, is courteous. Can't you follow an immigrant through, from shipboard to land, you ask. You are willing to pay any pro rata of passage.

Again, you see, the ocean liner docks at its regular docks. There, one company holds a contract to bring the aliens here, landing them at the Island dock. They stream off the boat and come, first, to the medical division. There the doctors divided them according to set classes. Some are found 0. K. now; some are to be detained; some are ill and go to the hospital. Those found O. K. are passed upstairs to what is known as the registry floor, and there inspected by the given inspectors, for admission into the states. If the newcomer be a child under sixteen, it must be shown that he will not become a public charge; and if a girl, also that she is not unprotected. Those detained to such end are kept here until called for, or until the guardian arranges to meet them.

The superintendent is most genial, and he suggests that you travel on and have a look at the nearby information room. Here many of those with friends come on to meet, are kept until these call for. Here girls, on their first visit

to the states, await their friends, and here folk some of whose company, the children perhaps, are in the hospital and they cannot go on without, await. This information you get by random questions to busy guards; actual guide for you there is none. You do get a printed slip as a guide, but it's hit and miss and really serves nothing at all.

You really do better just by using your eyes and your mouth, where men are not too busy to reply. You note great cages, as it were, covered with aluminum paint, wherein immigrants are found seated on benches, awaiting

THE TURK CAN BRING HIS PRAYER CLOTH

friends come to interrogate. As in the prisons of Mexico, you see friend and newcomer talking, each to each, through the bars. Such party comes here, goes to the desk, asks for the given immigrant, and talks to him, or to her. Interpreters are near, to help any conversation on. Then, satisfying the government that the emigre should accompany them, they get started on the trip to New York.

The system is intricate, and through it all you are kept away from the emigrant to the end, very near.

You pass on, past the railway room, where sit the emigrants till time for the boat for New York. It's a long room, that, with the mosaic floor equipped with long benches, on which the newcomers sit, each with his tag. The tag states the railway on which they're to go; the numerals tell the different routes. Once tagged and shown their railway ticket, these emigrants are allowed to buy food for the trip.

Uncle Sam puts up a packet here which he sells to emigrants at fifty cents. You, a non-emigrant, cannot buy; nor will those suspicious govern

ment agents even loan, on deposit, just long enough that you may bring a packet into the sun for a photograph. Remember, you, a citizen of the country, do not belong at Ellis Island, and they'll do the least they can for you. In that half-dollar packet there is one pound of bread, worth three cents; a half-pound cervelat sausage, worth eleven cents; five sandwiches at twenty cents; a tin of sardines worth four cents; a carton of crackers; some fruit; or three pies.

Pass on, as you dare, and you see a group of the detained being given daily exercise on the lawn before the detention room.

You follow a crowd, but to be challenged for your pass, and again your jaunt is at an end.

In fact, you soon discover that, a stranger on Ellis Island, you can see, do, absolutely nothing about the place, half worth while, without a written pass, and then some official to guide.

You return to the commissioner's office to so report; but the commissioner has gone on some junket of his own, as