The Phoenix herald., 1879-06-07
The European Influx.

sources of accession to our population, has largely increased during the first three months of the present year, and from all appearances we are destined to receive a stream of emigration from these countries nearly, if not quite equal in volume to previous incursions of the bone and sinew of Europe. The history of emigration to this country since the movement assumed dimen- sions entitling 1t to the notice of the statistician and the political economist, is an extremely interesting and valuable study, and 1t Is fortunate for the scien
 tist of future generations that tables showing with great exactness the num-
 bers, nationality and destination of these accessions to our population have since the year 1920 been carefully preserved.
 We can fancy what inestimabIe value would be attached to similar records could such be unearthed respecting the successive settlements of Saxons, Danes, Jutes, Normans and Flemings into England, as the basis for tracing the origin of her once mixed, but now ho- mogeneous people. Though no rec ords of the arrival of aliens before 1920 were kept, 1t Is estimated that during the interval between the organization of the government and that year, the emigrant element must have numbered about 250, ,000. The first noticeable movement in the direction of transat- lantic emigration on the modern scale was in 1877, when 9, ,24O passengers were landed at our ports. The attention of Congress was called to the matter and an Act passed regulating passenger ships, under which a record of the numbers and nationality of emigrants was kept. A recent article in the New fork Herald gives a number of the sta tistics of this remarkable human cur rent, showing it's principal sources and most notable fluctuations. For some years after 1920, the annual emigration was under ten thousand. It steadily rose, however, into the twenties, and in 1882 suddenly jumped to 60, ,4S2, owing to the prevalence of cholera in Europe. In 183S 1t fell to 38, ,911, rising again the few following years, and reaching 1O4,- 565 in 1S42. The commercial panic caused a falling of for the next two years. In 1S47 1t reached 234, ,96S, the stimulating cause being the disturbed condition of European politics. The Irish famine of '49-50 sent the fam ished people of that unfortunate couD- try here by the hundred thousand, 297, : O24 and 369, ,9S0 respectively being the total emigration record of these memo rable years, 51 and 55 per cent. being Irish. The same element supplied 56 per cent. of the total of 379, ,466 for the year 1851. A great rush from Germany came in 1854, the Teutonic settlers form ing 56 per cent. of the total emigration of 427 ,S33, when the human wave hay ing reached its highwater mark began fo oh l,.1- l1,o, T A. the war of the Rebellion, falling below a hundred thousand in 1861 and 1862. In 1865 the movements assumed some thing of its former dimensions, reach ing the total of 249, ,061. It continued steadily to increase until 1S72-73, when 1t eliminated in an influx of 449, ,4S3 and 437 ,004 for these respective years. Then we had another sharp and sudden decline, the exodus in 1877 numbering
 but 149, ,02O, hard times being doubtless the cause, and at present, as we previ- ously noted, there are strong symptoms of continuous increase.
 The bulk of the emigration has come from Germany and Ireland, the table of origins since 1S47 showing that these two countries have supplied about four ffths of the whole. Very nearly 3S per cert. IS German, and upwards of 35 per cent. Irish. Of the remainder. nearly 13 per cent. comes from England, per cent. each from Scotland and Sweden, and not quite the same proportion from France. It Is noteworthy, however, that future emigration is likely to be of a more general character, as the |" other foreign " element, that is, not German or Irish, in the tables for the last three years, has been upwards of 50 per cent. About 70 per cent. of the emigration lands at Castle Garden, New York. The destination of the emigrants of 1878, as recorded there, is full of significance in connection with the political outlook.
 While 3o per cent. remained in New York city and State, and the Western States, exclusive of Utah and the Pa cific Coast, absorbed 33 per cent, the South received hardly over per cent That this is in accordance with the gen. eral course of emigration is shown by the last federal census. The proportion of foreign to native-born recorded for the whole country is 14.44 per cent. i; and while Nevada has AS per cent, Gal ifornia 42 per cent, New York and Rhode Island 26 per cent. each, and the Western States a somewhat larger share of the foreign population, the ratio in most Southern communities is less than 2 per cent. That these fair and fertile regions should be summed by foreigners seeking to better their condition by hard work, is the strongest commentary on the effect abroad of the evil reputation for violence and brutal ity earned by the South.
 The grand total of emigration to the United States, to the close of 1877, in- cluding the estimate for the early years when no statistics were preserved, is S, ,69O, ,793. which it need hardly be said is unparalleled in previous human ex- perience. In coming ages the rows of tabulated figures which preserve it's data, and from which we have selected a few of the most telling facts, com and uninteresting as they may seem to us, will be vested with vital historic and ethnological signif- canoe, as indicating the origin of the