By the kindness of the official at the head of the stairs by which we would ordinarily have passed down and out to the ferry to take us to New York, we were allowed to drop our baggage behind a post, and, standing out of the way of the crowd, pick out our people as they filtered through past the inspectors. Salvatore Biajo came through marked “Railroad,” and was passed along to get his railroad-ticket order stamped, his money exchanged at the stand kept beside the stairs under contract by Post & Flagg, bankers, and in a minute more he had been moved on down the stairs to the railroad room, after I had had but the barest word with him. Antonio Genone, with a ticket for Philadelphia, came through without going over to the right to the railroad-ticket stamping official, and he was down the stairs and gone without even knowing that he was separated from us permanently. We began to see why the three stairways are called “The Stairs of Separation.” To their right is the money exchange, to the left are the Special Inquiry Room and the telegraph offices. Here family parties with different destinations are separated without a minute’s warning, and often never see each other again. It seems heartless, but it is the only practical system, for if allowance was made for good-byes the examination and distribution process would be blocked then and there by a dreadful crush. Special officers would be necessary to tear relatives forcibly from each other’s arms. The stairs to the right lead to the railroad room, where tickets are arranged, baggage checked and cleared from customs, and the immigrants loaded on boats to be taken to the various railroad stations for shipment to different parts of the country. The central stair leads to the detention rooms, where immigrants are held pending the arrival of friends. The left descent is for those free to go out to the ferry. Our Socosa boys, despite their labor contracts, came through bound for the railroad room, and they were gone, waving their hands and throwing kisses to us. Then the Gualtieri-Sicamino people, even Antonio, who had completely lost control of the situation, came through, marked “Detained.” I was allowed to collect them, that was all; as soon as they were assembled they went down the middle stairs. As soon as the women found they were to be shut up behind the screens of steel, they began to bewail their fortune, and between getting them quieted and getting a proper understanding of just why it had happened so, I had a lively five minutes. It seemed certain that all but my wife and myself must go behind the bars.