These facts explain what would otherwise seem an extraordinary circumstance—namely, that the first federal law passed with the avowed intent of regulating the volume of immigration was an act to encourage immigration. This was the act of July 4, 1864, which provided for the appointment by the President of a Commissioner of Immigration, to be under the direction of the Department of State, and further provided that all contracts made in foreign countries by immigrants pledging the wages of their labor for a term not exceeding twelve months should be valid. An immigration office was to be established in New York City, in charge of a Superintendent of Immigration, to look after the transporting of immigrants to their final destination, and protecting them from imposition and fraud. Several companies, in pursuance of this act, were formed for the purpose of dealing in contract labor. But protests against the character of immigrants continued strong, and the law was repealed in 1868. The feeling of opposition to contract labor in general was also beginning to assert itself at this time, and continued to grow, so that the next federal legislation touching on contract labor was of a wholly different character. This period witnessed another important change in the immigration situation—the transition from the sailing vessel to the steamship as the prevailing type of immigrant carrier. “Writers on the history of sail and steam navigation agree that steamships played no part prior to 1850 in the transportation of other than cabin passengers. In that year the Inman Line of steamships, then recently established, began to compete with sailing vessels by providing third class, or steerage, accommodation.... Once established in the emigrant carrying trade, steamships quickly monopolized the greater part of the business.”[94] In 1856, of the passengers landed at Castle Garden, New York, 96.4 per cent were carried on sailing vessels, and 3.6 per cent on steamships. In 1873 the proportions were almost exactly reversed—3.2 per cent on sailing vessels, and 96.8 per cent on steamships. The turn of the balance came between the years 1864 and 1865; in the first of these years the sailing vessels carried 55.7 per cent of the passengers, and in the second, 41.7 per cent. “No consistent data are available to show the relative number of passengers carried on sailing vessels and steamships after 1873, but it was not long until steamships had practically a complete monopoly of the business.”[95] This change did more to alleviate the conditions of the steerage than anything which had transpired previously.