PUTTING THEM THROUGH.

ARRIVAL OF AN OCEAN LINER. DUTIES OF A DISTRICT HEALTH OFFICER. "Brown! Is Brown there?" The command and the enquiry can be heard an.y day on irbich an orer-sea ocean liner arrives in port. The purser, attended by the District Health Officer and a Customs official, first runs the ship's company through like so many sheep through a "race." \b is a queer and interesting sight to watch the procession of half -dressed stokers, greasers find Stewards. They form a motley collection of alljraces, all ages, all sizes, and answer their names with an alertness and display of politeness that few would associate •with a ship's fireman. As 1 they filed past the Health Officer on the Gothic yesterday some appeared to take the inspection seriously, others looked amused; some openly scoffed at the proceeding when fchfen got out of earshot of their officers. -Aft, amongst the immigrants, the spectacle was interesting to "a degree. "Queenly?" the purser demanded, and a big, powerful Englishman strode blithely forward. "Ever been here before?" asked the Health Officer. "No." "What's your business?" the doctor kindly continued. "Butcher." "Let's see your hands." After the hands have been examined, and tlie man has received an encouraging tap on the chest he is "passed on," and the gleam 'of satisfaction which steals over his countenance could not be greater if he had been left a legacy of i/10,000, or had just received a passport for paradise. While all this is going on the man who has been "■through" is vigorously bombarded with, questions. "What did he ask you?" "Did he ask you who you were?" "Have you to tell him about your employment?" and a hundred other questions are fired at him from all quarters. "Aud you, ' said the doctor to another man, "where do you come from?" "Cambridge," answered^ a tall, lean, pale-faced young man, who might just have emerged from the recesses of a university. "What's your trade or profession?" "Firmer." "Any chest trouble?" squeezing his arms> and tapping his shirt front. "No," and somebody proffers the information, "Bad sailor." Another man with a. chest like a gigantic pigeon, is hustled forward. The dector gave the man a healthy slap on the chest to >cc if the abnormality was genuine. "Bricklayer," was the reply t.> the usual question. "Work?" "Yes been working these fifteen years; look at me hands. 'Ard? Yes." "Slight curvature of the spine, one would almost imagine," the doctor murmurs as the man glides away. But the bricklayer is "not concerned. Ho is makin b enquiries by this time from the Customs official about the date of the departure of the nest boat for Auckland, where he has a job awaiting him. A big man, wilh Ihe carnage of a soldier, broad-shouldered and young, cattib forward. "What's your nationality ?" the 'doctor admiringly enquires. "Dane,"' was the brief reply. A close inspection woiild be almost an insult to a man of such fine physical proportions. "'Very good; there's' plenty of butter here," and the man laughingly ttrolls off to make place fora domestic. "Have you any friends here?" is the first question. "Yea, an aunt." And so it was with others. They had sisters or aunts w cousins or friends. In some cases they were married women with two or three cnildrsn, who had tome out to join their husbands, pioneers in the process of family immigration. Verhaps a better Jot has reached these shores before, .but New Zealand can do with most of them. The majority were youDg 01 middle-aged. A fairly extensive round of enquiries showed that a considerable number intended going to Auckland, and many more were bound for Cnnstclnirch and Dunedin.