819, providing that a vessel should not carry more than two
passengers for every five tons, and that a specified quantity of certain
provisions should be carried for every passenger; requiring the master
to deliver sworn manifests showing age, sex, occupation, nativity, and
destination of passengers.

Act of 1855, limited number to one for every two tons, and provided
that each passenger on main and poop decks should have sixteen feet of
floor space, and on lower decks eighteen feet.

Act of 1882, providing that in a steamship the unobstructed spaces shall
be sufficient to allow one hundred cubic feet per passenger on main and
next deck, and 120 on second deck below main deck, and forbidding
carrying of passengers on any other decks, or in any space having
vertical height less than six feet; other provisions regulate the
occupancy of berths, light and air, ventilation, toilet rooms, food, and
hospital facilities. Explosives and other dangerous articles are not to
be carried, nor animals with or below passengers. Lists of passengers
are to be delivered to the boarding officer of customs.

Act of 1884, provision that no keeper of a sailors' boarding house or
hotel, and no runner or person interested in one, could board an
incoming vessel until after it reached its dock. This to protect aliens
from imposition and knavery.

LEGISLATION RECOMMENDED IN 1905 BY THE COMMISSIONER-GENERAL OF
IMMIGRATION

1. In regard to diseased aliens: that competent medical officers be
located at the principal ports of embarkation; that all aliens seeking
passage secure as a prerequisite from such officer a certificate of good
health, mental and physical; and that the bringing of any alien
unprovided with such certificate shall subject the vessel by which he is
brought to summary fine. 2. That the penalty of $100 now prescribed for
carrying diseased persons be increased to $500, as a means of making the
transportation lines more careful. 3. Such further legislation as will
enable the government to punish those who induce aliens to come to this
country under promise or assurance of employment. Less exacting rules
of evidence and a summary mode of trial are needed to make the law
effective. 4. That Congress provide means for distributing arriving
aliens who now congregate in the large cities. 5. That as a means of
those incapable of self-support through age or feebleness; those who
have not brought sufficient money to maintain them for a r