Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1868-11-20
How Maturalized Citizens ar,
Made in New York.

Let us spend a morning In the courts,
and see how the process Of naturaliza-
ton is carried on. Let us go first TO the
Superior Court, where In different
rooms Judges Garvin and MCCuuu are
running the machine" though in diff
ferent ways. The doors Of each Of the
rooms are guarded by officers, and out
slde is crowd Of would be citizens and
their witnesses, who are led into the
room in small armies. on entering
Judge Garvin's room the future citizen
and witnesses come up to the desk with
the naturalization paper already pre-
pared. The witness ig told 10 hold up
h y hand, and the Judge taking the pa
psf, repeats to him the substance Of 30.
and yet the Judge speaks 30 rapidly
the witness does not understand one
word in ten Of what the Judge says, and
does not know what he iB swearing TO.
The papers are then signed by the
Judge and passed 10 the Clerk, who re-
peats the oath Of allegiance for the citi-
zen even more rapidly than the Judge,
II Ghat were possible, and the citizen ls
made. five were to slime" Judge
GarvinI we should and that he made q
citizen minute.
Judge MoCunn operates differently.
The would be citizen IS in no case admit
ted TO the room, and the Judge has no
knowledge that there Is in existence any
such man as the one he ia converting
into q citizen. The witness is not put
to the trouble Of Identifying the party
to whose residence and moral character
he is swearing. The witnesses are ad-
mitted to the room In a long train AS
they approach the desk clerk thrusts
a book into the hands Of q dozen at
time, and mumbles an oath, The
Judge has large pile Of paper before
b hin, 941t,, 5Peicking, uP 3. enc be calls calls out
the Judge says. 'HDo you know the
man ? Have you known him more
than i've years In this city2 Is he
man Of good Charactetf" The witness
bows his head and the Judge signs the
papers. Occasionally the Judge asks
the witness If he has read the affidavit,
but il has been found that only in one
case in half an hour does he ask him il
its contents are true, or iR he swOre to
il. The future citizen not being present
the witness need not have known who
''this man" is for whom he is swearing
and occasional mistakes, arising from
confusion in the papers, show that IN
point Of fact he does not,
During the first FIVE minutes Judge
McCunn naturalized fourteen persons,
but during the next five minutes he
makes better time and puts fifteen
through. After the papers are signed
by the Judge they are passed to clerk
who takes them into another room
across the entry where the would be
citizen IS supposed 70 take the oath OF
allegiance before a clerk. Such is the
expeditions process Of citizen making
one may witness here any day. In
point Of fact, on a recent visit TO the
naturalization mills, we saw many a
man naturalized who took no oath Of
allegiance, and in no case was there any
pretense Of an attempt to prove that the
same man who was sworn to by the
witness was the one who got the natue-
alizatiOn papers or who took the oath.
On the same expedition we visited the
Court of Common Pleas.
Judge Daily was engaged in the same
business, but less rapidly than Judge
McCunn. His highest rate was one a
minute. He asked various questions,
but was less careful than Judge Barrett
whom he had met in the same Court on
previous day. Judge Barnard, Of the
Supreme Court, had not then COM
menced his operations in the making OF
citizens. He has, however, since been
driving them with a speed that viii
soon enable him to OYertake Judge Nc
Gum, if he has not already done SO.
We have the best Of evidence that be-
fore Judge Barnard the same three men
were naturalized three times over with
in ten minutes, on the oath of the same
witness. They received three sets of
papers, and, Of course, they transferred
them to others to vote Ou.-M 7. T53-
botne.