Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1853-06-23

most of the European population OF
that island to the United States. But
beyond every thing else which has oeen
witnessed in modern times, the FAMINE
which prevailed few years SINCE IN
Ireland gave q terrific impulse 70 emil
grafton Not less, probably, than one
million of her Inhabitants left her shores
within five years. The population of
this island, as highly favored in the
gifts of nature as any spot on the face
of the earth, has actually diminished
more than one million eight hundred
thousand since the famine year. Lon
don Quarterly Review for December,
1851, p. 1O1. The only example,
perhaps, in history of a similar result
in a country not visited by foreign war
or civil convulsion. The population
ought, in the course of nature, to have
increased within ten years by at least
that amount, and in point of fact, be-
tween 1910 and 1880, our own popula-
ton increased by more than six millions.
This prodigious increase of the popu-
lation of the United States is partly
owing to the emigration from foreign
countries, which has taken place under
the influence of the causes, general and
specific, to which l have alluded. Of
late years from three to four hundred
thousand emigrants are registered at
the several custom houses as arriving in
this country in the course of the year.
1t is probable that third as many more
enter by the Canadian frontier. Not
much less than two millions of emf
grants are supposed to have entered the
United States in the last ten years: and
it is calculated that there are living at
the present day in the United States,
five millions of persons, foreigners, who
have emigrated since 1890, and their
descendants.
There is nothing in the annals of
mankind to be compared to this; but
there is series of great movements
which may be contrasted with it. In
the period of thousand years which
began about three or four hundred
years before our Saviour, the Roman re-
public and empire were from time to
time invaded by warlike races from the
North and East, who burst with over
whelming force upon the South and
West of Europe, and repeatedly carried
desolation to the gates of Rome. These
multitudinous invaders were not armies
of men; they were in reality nations of
hostile emigrants. They came with
their wives-with their ''young barba-
rians'-with their Scythian cavalry
and their herds of cattle; and they
came with no purpose of going away.
The animus maRendi was made up be-
fore they abandoned their iee-clad
homes. They left their Arctic ale
glance behind them. They found the
sunny banks of the Arno and the Rhone
more pleasant than those of the Don
and the Volga. Unaccustomed to the
sight of any tree more inviting than the
melancholy fir and the stunted birch,
its branches glittering with snowy crys-
tails, brought up under climate where
the generous fruits are unknown, these
children of the North were not so much
fascinated as bewildered ''in the land of
the citron and MYRTLE" they gazed
with delighted astonishment at the
spreading elm, festooned with Falernian
clusters; clutched, with kindfof fran
tic Joy, at the fruit of the fig tree and
the olive; at the melting peach, the lus-
cious plum, the golden orange, and the
pomegranate, whose tinted cheek out
bushes every thing but the living car
nation of youthful love.
With grim delight the brood of winter view
A brighter day and heavens of azure hue;
Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose,
And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows.
By the fortune of war single detach-
ments and even mighty armies fire.
quently suffered defeat; but their place
was Immediately taken by new hordes,
which fell upon declining Rome as the
famished wolves in one of Catlin's pic
lures fell upon an aged Buffalo in our
Western prairies. The imperial mon
ster, powerful even in his decrepitude,
would often scatter their undisciplined
army with his iron tusks, and trample
them by thousands under his brazen
feet; but when he turned back, torn and
bleeding, to his seven hills, tens of
thousands came bowling from the north
ern forests, who sprang at his throat
and buried their fangs in his lacerated
side. Applause. Wherever they
conquered-and in the end they con-
quered everywhere-they established
themselves on the soil-invited new
comers-and from their union with the
former inhabitants, the nations of the
South and West of Europe, at the
present day, for the most part trace
their descent.
We know but little of the numbers
thus thrown in upon the Roman repub-
lie and empire in the course of eight or
ten centuries. They were, no doubt,
greatly exaggerated by the panic fear
of the inhabitants; and the pride of the
Roman historians would lead them to
magnify the power before which their
own legions had so often quailed. But
when we consider the difficulty of SUBJ
sisting large number of persons in a
march through an unfriendly country
and this at a time when much of the
now cultivated portion of Europe was
covered with forest and swamp am