The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-05-05
Italians In New York.


During the year 1879 seven thousand
two hundred Italians immigrants were
landed ut this port, one-third of which
mum Der remained in the city, and there
are now over twenty thousand Italians
scattered among the population of New
York. The more recently arrived herd
together in colonies, such as those in
Baxter and Mott streets, in Eleventh
street, in Yorkville, and in Hoboken.
Many of the mere important industries
of the city are in the hands of Italians
as employers and employed, such as the
manufacture of macarOni, of objects
of art, confectionery, artificial flowers;
and Italian workmen may be found every
where mingled with those of other ma
tionalities. 1t is no uncommon thing to
see at noon some swarthy Italian, engaged
on building in process of erection,
resting and dining from his tin kettle,
while his brawny skinned wife sits by
his side, brave in her gold earrings
and beads, with red flower in her
hair, all of which at home were
kept for feast days. But here in Amer
lea increased wages make every day
feast day in the matter of food and raj
ment; and why, indeed, should not the
architectural principle of beauty sup
plementing necessity be applied even to
the daily round of hod-carrying Teresa
from the Ligurian mountain is certainly
more picturesque object than Bridget
from Cork, and quite as worthy OF IN
corporation in our new civilization. She
is better wife and mother, and under
equal circumstances fur Outstrips the
latter in that improvement of her condi-
ton evoked by the activity of the New
Worli. Her children attend the public
schools, and develop very early an
amount of energy and initiative which,
added to the quick intuition of Italian
blood, makes them valuable factors
in the population. That the Italians
are an idle and thriftless peo-
pie is superstition which time
will remove from the American mind. A
little kindly guidance and teaching can
mould them into almost any form. But
capital is the first necessity of the indi-
vidual. Is it to be wondered at, there
fore, that the poor untried souls that
wander from their village or mountain
homes, with no advice but that of the
parish priest, no knowledge of the coun-
try to which they are going but the
vague though dazzling remembrance
that somebody's uncle or brother once
went to Buenos Ayers and returned
with fortune, no pecuniary resource
but that which results from the sale of
their little farms or the wife's heritage
of gold beads, and no intellectual capt.
tai but the primitive methods of farming
handed down by their ancestors, should
drift into listless and hopeless poverty?
Their emigration is frequently in the
hands OF shrewd compatriots, who man
age to land them on our shores in
robbed and plundered condition.
On the other hand, the thrifty bour-
geois who brings with him the knowl-
edge of trade, and some little capital to
aid him in getting footing, very soon
begins to prosper, and lay by money
with which to return and dazzle the eyes
of his poorer neighbors, demoralizing
his native town by filling its inhabitants
with warnings toward the Ell Dorado OF
"Nuoya York" Such n man, confec-
toner, hair-dresser, or grocer, purchases
q villa, sets up his carriage, and to all
appearance purposes spending his HE
in elegant leisure; but the greed OF
money getting which he has brought
back from the New World surges rest
lessly within him, and he breaks mp his
establishment, and returns to New York
to live behind his shop in some damp,
unwholesome den, and that he
may add few more dollars to
his store, and too often his averice is
rewarded by the contraction of disease
which presently gives his hard-earned
American dollars into the hands OF his
relatives in Italy. There is an element
of chance in the success of Italians
which makes emigration with them a
matter of more prudence and foresight.
The idyllic life of an Italian hillside or
of a dreaming medieval town is but poor
preparation for the hand to-hand strug-
gle for bread of an overcrowded city.
Hence the papers on the peninsula TEEN
with protests and warnings from the
pens of intelligent Italians in America
against the thoughtless abandonment OF
home and country on the uncertain pros
pect of success across the ocean
tCharlotte Adams, in Harper's Maga-
zine.