FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 253. 



fact. Formerly we were considered a purely agricultural people, but 

 with three-eighths of our population living in cities, and the proportion 

 constantly increasing, we can no longer be so considered. Next note the 

 relative proportion of the native and foreign-born who reside in country 

 and city. Approximately, five-eighths of the native inhabitants in .the 

 southern counties live in the country, and three-eighths in the cities, 

 while of the foreign-born the reverse is true, three-eighths live in the 

 country and five-eighths in the cities. What the result will be of this 

 aggregation of the foreign-born in the cities is a question well worth 

 study. A writer of a recent magazine article proves almost conclusively 

 that the Irish rule the cities of this country. It is conceded that the 

 cities control the politics of the country. With the foreign-born in con- 

 trol of the cities, and the cities in control of the politics, who but the 

 foreign-bom control the country? 



BIRTHS. 



Study now for a moment the statistics of births. The whole number 

 of births in the census year was, approximately, 60,000. Both parents 

 of 26,342 of these children were native, while both parents of 21,083 were 

 foreign-born. In the foreign population, then, which constitutes but one- 

 fourth of the total, there were four-fifths as many births as in the other 

 three-fourths, or in the native. Having now seen the nativity of the 

 parents of the children born, suppose we go a step farther back and find 

 the nativity of their grandparents. The census shows that the whole 

 number of children born whose parents and grandparents were all 

 native number 10,880, while the number whose parents and grandparents 

 were all foreign-bom number 20,080. Now the native population with 

 native parents is 904,881, and the foreign population with foreign-born 

 parents 540,361. The former is one and two-thirds times the latter, yet 

 in the latter there are twice as many births as in the former. So much 

 for the entire State. What of the cities? Here the number of children 

 born whose parents and grandparents are all native is 2,063, while the 

 number born whose parents and grandparents are all foreign-born is 

 10,631, or five times the former. In this study no account is made of 

 those children born of mixed native and foreign parentage. The sta- 

 tistics will, perhaps, be more easily understood and therefore better 

 appreciated, if we consider the number of persons by nativity who 

 became parents during the census year instead of the number of births. 

 In our native population outside the cities, 1,119,277, the number who 

 became parents is 46,522, or 4.16 per cent, while in the foreign-born, 

 301,313, the number who Ijecame parents is 27,267, or 9.05 per cent. In 

 the cities, of native-bom, 3.33 per cent, while of the foreign-born, 10.02 

 per cent became parents. You will not fail to notice that the proportion 

 of the native was less, and of the foreign-born more, in the cities than in 

 the country. Of the native in the country, 4.16 per cent, and in the 

 cities only 3.33 per cent, while of the foreign-bom, 9.05 per cent in the 

 country, and 10.02 per cent in the cities, became parents. 



The following facts respecting two localities are most striking: In 

 the city of Grand Rapids, there are 24,578 native inhabitants with native 

 parents, and 25,298 foreign-bom with foreign parents. The two classes 



