Now, if money is to talk down here, I wish to state that the men and women from the steerage have got more real dough than all the first and second cabins put together.

They haven't any letters of credit or bank accounts in New York, but there are a dozen men in the steerage who have as much as two or three thousand pesos sewed up inside their clothes.

So far as I can make out, the only people who can afford to hire anybody to build a hut for them, and pay for it in real money, are the plutocrats from the steerage.
"Mr.Landover's letter of credit is good for fifteen thousand if he ever gets back to New York, but it isn't worth fifteen cents here.

His life is insured for one million dollars, I am told.

I don't know who the beneficiaries are, but, whoever they are, they are going to put in a claim for the million if he doesn't show up in New York pretty shortly.
He is going to be declared officially dead, and so are all the rest of us, after a reasonable time has elapsed.