760 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



From this short table we see the changes that are going on. 

 Taking the last census decade of years, we find that the aggregate 

 population increased 24*86 per cent. Analyzing this, it is seen 

 that the native-born population increased 22*70 per cent and the 

 foreign-born 38*47 per cent. The heaviest increase in the foreign- 

 born was between 1850 and I860, when it was 84*38 per cent. This 

 was soon after the great tide of immigration set in toward this 

 country. The highest percentage of increase in the native-born 

 population was between 1870 and 1880, so far as the decades in 

 the table are shown, it then being 31*78 per cent. The percentage 

 of the native and foreign-born of the total population is given in 

 the following tabular statement : 



This little table answers very fully the question as to whether 

 the foreign-born are increasing out of proportion to the increase 

 of population. Leaving out 1850, as immigration had just then 

 begun to be felt strongly, and commencing with the decade of 

 1860, the percentages are very interesting. In that year the for- 

 eign-born constituted 13*16 per cent of the total population of the 

 country. In 1890 it constituted 14*77 per cent, or an increase of 

 '61 of 1 per cent in the thirty years, certainly not a very alarm- 

 ing figure. In 1870 the foreign-born population constituted 14*44 

 per cent, while in 1890 it was, as stated, 14*77 per cent, an in- 

 crease in percentage of '33 per cent in twenty years. The native 

 population in 1860 was represented by 86*84 per cent of the total 

 population, and in 1890 by 85*23 per cent. 



If we examine particular sections of the country, however, 

 we find some extraordinary proportions. Massachusetts, for in- 

 stance, in 1880 had 443,491 foreign-born persons as part of her 

 population. This was 24*87 per cent of the total population. In 

 June, 1890, her foreign-born population numbered 657,137, and 

 was 29*04 per cent of the total. The foreign-born population in 

 Rhode Island increased from 78,993 in 1880 to 106,305 in 1890. 

 The great State of New York had 1,211,379 foreign-born persons 

 in her borders in 1880, while in 1890 this body had increased to 

 1,571,050. Pennsylvania showed like proportions. In Wisconsin 

 the foreign-born population increased from 405,425 in 1880 to 519,- 



