The Portland daily press., 1868-10-16
How Natafalized Citizens are made I'm
New York.

Let US spend morning in the courts and see
how the process of naturalization was carried
on. Let US go first to the superior Oourt,
where in different rooms judges Garvin ana
doorS of each of the
rooms are guarded by officers, and outside is a
crowd of woud-be citizens and their witness
es. who are led into the rooms in small armies.
GA entering judge Garvin's room the future
citizen and his witness come up to the desk
with the naturalization paper already Drepar-
ed. The witness is told to hold up his hand
and the judge taking the paper, repeats to him
the substance of it, and asks him if he swore
to it, and yet the judge speaks so rapidly that
we hazard nothing in saying that the witness
does not understand one word in ten of what
the judge says, and does not know what he is
swearing TO. The papers are then signed by
the judge and passed to Clerk who repeats
the oath of allegiance for the citizen even more
rapidly than the Judge, if that were possible,
and the citizen is made. If we were to "time"
Judge Garvin, we should find that he made a
citizen minute.
Judge McCunn operates differently. The
would-be citizen is in no case admitted to the
room and the Judge has no knowledge that
there is in existence any such man as the one
he is converting into 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 admitted to the
room in a long train. As they approach the
judge, clerk thrusts a book into the hards of
dozen at time, and mumbles an oath. The
Judge has large pile of papers before him:
Picking up. one, he calls out John Strauss.
A Teuton steps up the judge says: Do you
know this MANI" Have you known him
| more than five years in the city?" =" Is he
man of good character?" The witness bows
| his head, and the judge signs the papers. Oc-
| casionally the judge asks the witness if he has
| read the affidavit, but it has been found that
| only in one case in half an hour does he ask
him if its contents true, if he swore to it.
| The future citizen not being present, the wit
| ness need not have known who this man" is
| for whom he is swearing, and occasional mis-
| takes arising from confusion in the papers
| show that in point offact he does not.
| During the first five minutes Judge McCunn
naturalizes 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 a
| clerk, who takes them into another room
| across the entry, where the would-be citizen is
| supposed TO take the oath of allegiance before
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 natu-
ralization mills, we saw many q man natural
| lied who took no oath of allegiance, and in no
| case was there any pretense of an attempt to
| provide that the same man who was sworn to
| by the witness was the one who got the natu-
ralizatiou papers, or who took the oath. On
the same expedition we visited the court of
| Common Pleas.
| Judge LAZY was engaged IN the same DuSl-
| ness, but less rapidly than Judge McCunn.-
| His highest rate was one minute. He asked
| various questions, but was less careful than
| Judge Barrett, whom we had seen in the same
/ court on previous day. Judge Barnard of
| the Supreme Court had not then commenced
| his operations in the making of citizens. He
| has, however, since been driving them with a
| speed that will soon enable him to overtake
| Judge McCunn, if he has not already done so.
We haze the best of Evidence that before Judge
| Barnard the same three men tcere naturalized
three times 0yer aoitiin ten minutes, on the oath
| of the same ,yitness. They received three sets
of papers, and of course they transferred them to
| others to vote on.-N. Y. Tribune.