{"id":"01KG8AKZ9RAX3JDSD3YPAD1FGP","cid":"bafkreice3mduig233o3t4snbxj4dhuxyuzgxymuaqak5qyrf7yygjafzz4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":11654,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:14.843Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 7","source_file":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","start_line":11591,"text":"_There_ is the obituary of the destitute dead, who die on the sea. They\r\ndie, like the billows that break on the shore, and no more are heard or\r\nseen. But in the events, thus merely initialized in the catalogue of\r\npassing occurrences, and but glanced at by the readers of news, who are\r\nmore taken up with paragraphs of fuller flavor; what a world of life\r\nand death, what a world of humanity and its woes, lies shrunk into a\r\nthree-worded sentence!\r\n\r\nYou see no plague-ship driving through a stormy sea; you hear no groans\r\nof despair; you see no corpses thrown over the bulwarks; you mark not\r\nthe wringing hands and torn hair of widows and orphans:—all is a blank.\r\nAnd one of these blanks I have but filled up, in recounting the details\r\nof the Highlander’s calamity.\r\n\r\nBesides that natural tendency, which hurries into oblivion the last\r\nwoes of the poor; other causes combine to suppress the detailed\r\ncircumstances of disasters like these. Such things, if widely known,\r\noperate unfavorably to the ship, and make her a bad name; and to avoid\r\ndetention at quarantine, a captain will state the case in the most\r\npalliating light, and strive to hush it up, as much as he can.\r\n\r\nIn no better place than this, perhaps, can a few words be said,\r\nconcerning emigrant ships in general.\r\n\r\nLet us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such\r\nmultitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores; let\r\nus waive it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they\r\nhave God’s right to come; though they bring all Ireland and her\r\nmiseries with them. For the whole world is the patrimony of the whole\r\nworld; there is no telling who does not own a stone in the Great Wall\r\nof China. But we waive all this; and will only consider, how best the\r\nemigrants can come hither, since come they do, and come they must and\r\nwill.\r\n\r\nOf late, a law has been passed in Congress, restricting ships to a\r\ncertain number of emigrants, according to a certain rate. If this law\r\nwere enforced, much good might be done; and so also might much good be\r\ndone, were the English law likewise enforced, concerning the fixed\r\nsupply of food for every emigrant embarking from Liverpool. But it is\r\nhardly to be believed, that either of these laws is observed.\r\n\r\nBut in all respects, no legislation, even nominally, reaches the hard\r\nlot of the emigrant. What ordinance makes it obligatory upon the\r\ncaptain of a ship, to supply the steerage-passengers with decent\r\nlodgings, and give them light and air in that foul den, where they are\r\nimmured, during a long voyage across the Atlantic? What ordinance\r\nnecessitates him to place the _galley,_ or steerage-passengers’ stove,\r\nin a dry place of shelter, where the emigrants can do their cooking\r\nduring a storm, or wet weather? What ordinance obliges him to give them\r\nmore room on deck, and let them have an occasional run fore and\r\naft?—There is no law concerning these things. And if there was, who but\r\nsome Howard in office would see it enforced? and how seldom is there a\r\nHoward in office!\r\n\r\nWe talk of the Turks, and abhor the cannibals; but may not some of\r\n_them,_ go to heaven, before some of _us?_ We may have civilized bodies\r\nand yet barbarous souls. We are blind to the real sights of this world;\r\ndeaf to its voice; and dead to its death. And not till we know, that\r\none grief outweighs ten thousand joys, will we become what Christianity\r\nis striving to make us.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 7"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJT5SAHKG6V354KE5GRJR","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1GP71YDJ60P8SRH97MF","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKZ9R8J96D4EGGPHDTJ8H","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:21.816Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:34.827Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}