IMMIGRATION AND CRIME. 627 



The natives, it will be observed, though almost three fourths 

 of the population, commit le^ss than half the homicides ; while the 

 aliens, including in that term the negroes as well as the foreign 

 born, though only about one fourth of the population, commit 

 more than half the homicides. 



How many of the murders committed by natives are due to 

 the example and presence of the foreigners can not be estimated, 

 but it is doubtless no small proportion. 



The number of murders committed by the black race is very 

 large. Out of the 7,386 prisoners indicted for homicide, 4,425 

 were white and 2,739 were negroes. In point of numbers the 

 negro population is less than a seventh of the white population, 

 and yet the negroes commit more than half as many murders as 

 the whites. 



In counting up the cost of the foreigner, in addition to what 

 he kills, burns, and destroys, it may be well to mention the charge 

 we are put to in maintaining his paupers, a service which we have 

 now performed for him for many years with great generosity in 

 our almshouses. Census Bulletin No. 90 has it in a nutshell: 

 " The foreign population of this country contributes, directly or 

 indirectly, in the persons of the foreign born or of their immedi- 

 ate descendants, very nearly three fifths of all the paupers sup- 

 ported in almshouses." In other words, although the foreign 

 element is much less than half of the whole population, it never- 

 theless furnishes more than half of the paupers. If we leave out 

 the pauper descendants of foreigners and count merely the for- 

 eign-born paupers, we find that they alone outnumber the native 

 paupers. 



The original native population of the United States, which 

 fought the Revolution and built up the country for the next fifty 

 years, was remarkably free from the habit of settling every petty 

 dispute by homicide, and yet a large part of them were people 

 who may be said to have passed their lives with firearms in their 

 hands. They were hunters and Indian fighters, and they were all 

 familiar with war, whether against the French, the Indians, or 

 their own race in the Revolution ; but in their personal disputes 

 among themselves they seldom attempted to kill. The frontiers- 

 man of that period usually settled quarrels with his fists. In the 

 Whisky Rebellion of 1794, which was long continued and serious 

 enough to have an army sent to suppress it, the rioters did not 

 take a single human life. They tarred and feathered some of 

 their enemies, shaved their heads, and indulged in other rough 

 treatment. Even after two or three of their number had been 

 shot by the authorities they showed none of that anxious desire 

 for killing that now characterizes rioters. 



When the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania for 



