Fifty Dollars for a Clean Bill of Health

The government officials at Port Townsend yesterday notified Captain Jones, of the sealing schooner A. B. Alger, that he had violated the orders of the treasury department in passing the quarantine station at Port Townsend without submitting his vessel and crew to inspection. The only way out of it was to return the vessel to Port Townsend or have the quarantine officer come over here to inspect her.

The fee for having the quarantine officer come over here was $50, but it would cost three times this amount to have the vessel taken back to Port Townsend, so there was no alternative but to pay the exorbitant fee, and in the afternoon Dr. Conover arrived over and gave the vessel a clean bill of health.

Shipping men cannot understand just how Dr. Conover construes the orders of the treasury department to apply to this class of vessels unless his object be to force business to Port Townsend by compelling all vessels to stop there whether it is necessary or not. Neither could it have been the order for vessels coming from foreign ports to submit to inspection to guard against cholera, for that order plainly states that no vessel from any foreign port carrying immigrants shall be admitted to enter at any port of the United States until said vessel shall have undergone quarantine detention of twenty days. The Alger arrived in the waters off Port Townsend Tuesday, carried no immigrants, and hence it would naturally be presumed the order did not apply to her.

Captain Jones said: 'Some time ago I brought a tugboat in from Astoria without stopping at Port Townsend. The customs officials informed me I could enter her at Seattle just as well, but when I reached here I had to go back to Port Townsend to enter. For this reason I was especially particular to inquire of the collector when I started out on my sealing cruise in January if I could come direct to Seattle on my return and enter here. He told me positively I could. But now it turns out that they have some quarantine regulations of which I could have no possible knowledge, and they practically fine the vessel for my ignorance of it. I consider the amount charged for coming over here an imposition.'

Captain J. C. Nixon, the owner of the vessel, said: 'I do not care to say much about the matter, but I consider it one of the greatest outrages I ever saw. The vessel simply touched at a Japan port for supplies and then continued on her cruise. The captain could not have had any knowledge of the order for all vessels coming from foreign ports to stop at the quarantine station. If he had, he could easily have gone in there, for the vessel was drifting about in a dead calm near there for two or three days. It is all right to enforce quarantine regulations, and I would have no objection to paying a reasonable fee for the official to come over here, but nobody ever heard of such a thing as $50 for a man for a few hours, coming over and going back. He simply knew he had the cinch and put it on to me.'