Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-04-24
TFRoM OUR REGULAR CORRESPONDENT. !

NEW YORK, April 20, 1872.
There is an old story of man who under
took TO read "Websters Unabridged" in regu-
lar order. After going half through the letter
A he gave it up. "Some folks may like it," he
said, "but it pears 10 me that the stories are
too short" To some other persons dictionary
is more than romance or a history. To them
a word is a key 10 a volume. When such an
one reads of Candidate" for office, his mind
goes back to the time when an old Roman, put.
ting on a white wooden wrapper (caadidd toga),
the nearest approach he had to a clean shirt
went into the street and forum soliciting votes.
A "candid" man is one metaphorcally clothed
in white, that is Of unblemished repute. "Dam-
ask" carries him back to Damascus, perhaps
tie oldest city in the world, whence that fabric
first came to Europe. "Muslin" is not so many
yards of cloth; it recalls to him Mosa in Mesopo-
tamia, hard by the birthplace of Abraham,
whence the delicate cotton fabrics woven on the
banks of the Indus found their way to those of
the Tiber and the Thames. The history of
single word not unfrequently involves the his.
tory of an idea or of a people. Thus, to one
who knows how to use it, dictionary may be-
come the most interesting book in the world.
A city directory would seem to be even
drier reading than a dictionary. Unless
one wished to find out the residence
of a particular Mr.. Smith, why should
he care TO know what other Smiths reside in
such and such streets? But when he finds that the
name Of Smith outnumbers every other name, he
inquiries the reason, and learns that in the DAYS
when our Saxon ancestors began to assume as
surnames the uame of their occupation, the
Smiths were the most numerous class of arti.
sans; and that their business was mainly to make
swords, spears, and the like. Hence il is evi.
dent that our ancestors lived in troublous times
and were Obliged to wear arms. And SO on.
without end.
Still drier reading than directory would
seem to be volume containing nothing but the
nine digits and the cipher, arranged in all sorts
Of ways. But have found much of interest in
the "eight tables" which form part of our
census report. These eight tables fill volume
oineary 8OOquarto pages each quarter as large
as page of the Spy. They are devoted solely
to the statistics of our population. But in them
lie the germs of history. They tell the race, resi-
bNuCc duu DiIlu-DldNS VI tNtI1 WOUldIl ana
child. They show the great currents of migra-
ton, and point ont prophetically the course Of
empire incidentally, and perhaps with no
such intent on the part Of their trainers, they
enable us to estimate with almost mathematical
| precision the ravages Of our late war.
| The total population Of the United States is
SS55ss71; of these SO 2OS, 1923 are whites, 1885,.
| colored, 68254 Chinese, 25,73t Indians. OF
native birth there 329s9, 437; offoreign birth
there are 5566,5l6 coming to us from about
sixty different countries. OF the foreign popu-
lation one-third reside in New York and Penn.
sylvania, another third in Illinois, Ohio, Wiscon.
sin, Massachusetts and Missouri OF the south.
ern states, Texas and Louisiana, each with go 600
are the only ones in which there is any consider.
able foreign element, the other nine havino only
$4,000, not as many as there arc in the city Of
Boston. The proportion Of foreigners is great.
est in California, where they are to the natives
as 4 TO Z, and least in North Carolina. wherc
they are as to 1888. There are moreover abou,
four and quarter millions more of whom botI
parents are foreign, and another million one o
whose parents is foreign. About seven,eighth
Of the foreign population is Irish or German
The great body Of the Irish remain in cities; o
the Germans, about half reside In cities an,
half in the country, mainly 10 the western
states.
Tie state 10 which every person was born
and that in which he resides, being both given
we can trace exactly the course Of the migra
tons Of our population. With the single excep
tons of Nebraska and Nevada, there is no stat
4 | VIII LuF0 ..f.tf