In many towns in Galicia, there were the scouting offices which paid all the expenses in lieu of the future earnings. Those offices were also acting as the employment agencies - recruiting would be immigrants for the factories, mines or household work in the new world. So those who did not have the family to send them the money or could not finance the passage themselves would use the agency. Sometimes, it took years before they paid off their debt. Those agencies advertised their services in the local newspapers. ella