57° THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



SOME EUROPEAN CONDITIONS AFFECTING EMIGEATION 



BY ARTHUR CLINTON BOGGESS 



EEID CHRISTIAN COLLEGE, LUCKNOW, INDIA 



FROM what economic and social conditions do our immigrants from 

 Europe come ? This was the question that came to me after 

 reading book after book concerning the immigrant after he has reached 

 America. A diligent gathering from many sources, chiefly official 

 documents, has brought to light many facts of much interest to one who 

 really cares to know the character of the surroundings of those who are 

 thronging our shores. It is the purpose of this article to present some 

 leading conditions in various countries of Europe. 



Russia 



One eighth of our immigrants are Russian Jews. Peculiar and 

 pathetic is the lot of the Jew in Russia. A law of 1769, modified in 

 1804 and in 1835, requires that all Jews, except certain specified classes, 

 shall reside within the Jewish pale. The pale is a district beginning 

 immediately south of the Baltic provinces, stretching throughout the 

 west and extending over the south as far east as the Don Army Terri- 

 tory. It has an area of about 362,000 square miles, or less than 20 per 

 cent, of European Russia, and only a little over 4 per cent, of the entire 

 Russian empire. Outside the pale may reside, under certain restric- 

 tions, merchants of the first guild — i. e., merchants paying a very high 

 business license — professional persons and master artisans. As a mat- 

 ter of fact 93.9 per cent, of all Jews in the empire live in the pale, 4 per 

 cent, live in the remaining part of European Russia and 2.1 per cent, 

 live in Asiatic Russia. Even the place of residence within the pale is 

 limited by a provision of the notorious May laws of 1882, which pro- 

 hibits the Jews from buying or renting lands outside the limits of 

 cities and incorporated towns. Jews who owned farm lands in 1882 

 were not dispossessed, but the law operates to preclude any increase in 

 such holdings. 



Restriction upon his place of residence is not the only limitation 

 placed upon the Jew in Russia. In the summer of 1887 the minister 

 of instruction was empowered to limit the number of Jewish students 

 to be admitted into the secondary institutions of learning. This limit 

 was defined as 10 per cent, for the institutions located within the pale, 

 5 per cent, in the remaining cities and only 3 per cent, in the two cap- 

 ital cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The measure was justified as 

 necessary to maintain a more " normal proportion between the number 



