394 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the principal movement from that country was prior to 1860, and is 

 perhaps attributable largely to the political unrest there prevailing in 

 the early years of the century. The total immigration has amounted 

 to 18,476,726,* the greater proportion of which have been males be- 

 tween the ages of fifteen and fifty years. 



Previous to 1828, few children under the age of fifteen years 

 arrived, but after this year there was a distinctive increase in the 

 family as distinguished from the individual movement. The family 

 movement has been much greater among the British than among the 

 Irish which people present the anomaly of the female emigration 

 being generally equal to and in some years in excess of the male 

 but is most marked among the Germans and Austrians; f while, on 

 the other hand, from Scandinavia, Switzerland, and the Mediterra- 

 nean countries of Europe it is an unimportant factor. In the case 

 of Russia, however, a family movement of some magnitude seems to 

 have prevailed. 



Great Britain, as might be expected, has furnished more skilled 

 craftsmen, clerks, etc., than any other country. The greatest num- 

 ber of farmers % has come from Germany, but Scandinavia has also 

 furnished an appreciable proportion. From Ireland have come 

 more unskilled laborers and servants than from any other country, 

 although Germany is a close competitor. Since the middle of the 

 century, and even more markedly since 1880, the status of the arriv- 

 ing body of immigrants has, altogether, vastly deteriorated. The 

 swarms of aliens who are generally classified as " without occupa- 

 tion," arriving from Italy, Poland, and Hungary, have enormously 

 swelled this total. While it is true that the immigration statistics 

 show a considerable number of farmers # from Russia and Italy, yet 

 these rarely continue their original occupation upon arriving in this 

 country; in fact, a large number of them ultimately come to consti- 

 tute the refuse population of our great cities. 



That the foreign element has exercised an effect observable in 

 visible and tangible results can not be doubted; it was primarily 

 the effect of training by foreign craftsmen that the native workers 

 have arrived at the degree of proficiency in arts, manufactures, and 

 all industries which now distinguish them. Many aliens have fought 

 by land and by sea in the wars in which this country has been 

 engaged; aliens have had command of its fleets and its armies; sev- 



* See note (f) on page 393. 



f Not including the Hungarians, among whom the proportion is very small. 



% The word farmer is used synonymously with " agricultural laborer," as employed in 

 the reports of the Commissioner of Immigration, although as a matter of fact many of 

 those so classed have scarcely a knowledge of the rudimentary principles of farming, and 

 would be incapable of conducting the most ordinary agricultural operations. 



# See above note. 



