The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-06-29
ROUND ABOUT GOTHAM.
COMMISSIONER STARR REVIEWS
TEN YEARS IMMIGRATION.

tionalities-How the "Coal Barons'
Encouraged Undesirable Immi-
erants-No More Bandits and Rob-
bers Arriving-wan Street and the
SILVER Bill-The East Against it, but
No Panic Feared is the Cholera
Coming?
(CopWightl
NEW York, June 2s.-The completion of
the official census, while it shows New Y ork
to have grown nearly 70 per cent. in popu-
lation since 1880, sheds no light, as far as
the average citizen is concerned, on the ele-
ments that have entered into this remarka-
bic increase. By and by, probably months
hence, when Commissioner Porter's clerks
have finished tabulating the unwieldy mass
of statistics that have poured in upon them
at Washington for weeks, we may learn
something about it. Till then this polyglot
metropolis, which has been doubling its
bulk like huge SNOWFALL, only it isn't all
snow by good deal, will have to be patient.
There is, however one man in New York
who can let in food of light on this sub
ject, and who has done more TO roll along
the growing ball of population than any
other individual in Uncle Sans domain
George Starr Is the senior and the Oldest
living commissioner of immigration at this
port. He can tell Just how the ball has
grown ever since 1S47-when the tide of
immigration began-until now, when the
arrivals from all countries average nearly
100000 a year. Commissioner Starr has
prepared the following remarkably inter-
estlng review of the immigration since 1880,
srralxv f.v.% Il nr,do
it possesses an interest for all parts of the
union, / give it in full:
"The national census which is now ap-
preaching completion will show a very
large increase in the numbers of citizens of
foreign birth. Probably thirty of each 100
of our inhabitants are of alien birth or
parentage In the city of New YORK the
percentage is nearly one-third, while Chi
cago and our western cities will show even
larger proportion. During the past ten
years more than 100000 Europeans have
emerged from the big gate at Castle
Garden and turned their wondering
faces westward. At least half a million
have entered the United States at other
points. OF these newcomers more than a
million, or a third of the whole number,
have been Germans, and the Fatherland
furnishes a constantly increasing percentage
of the immigration. Next come the Irish,
who number about $50, 600, followed closely
by the swarthy Italians with 100000, and
the light-haired Scandinavians with 200, 900.
The balance is composed of representatives
of almost every race upon the face of the
earth.
There are many interesting features of
immigration which do not appear in the
columns Of statistics as they are published
from time to time. The era OF unprece-
dented prosperity which set in after the
close of our civil war started human tide
flowing across the Atlantic in a volume
never before witnessed in any migration of
peoples. This led to abuses, and into this
current were pitched the lame, the halt and
the blind-the dregs Of Europe. This rem
dered necessary restrictive legislation,
which has tended to purify the unwhole-
some stream and improve the quality Of i'm
migration.
"Of the undesirable classes which were
cast upon our shores, the most objection
able were the Slovack mine laborers, who
were brought hither by the Pennsylvania
coal barons' before the passage of the
alien contract labor laws, the Italians who
were in'veigled by INSCRIPTIONS agents of
steamship lines. and Bohemian cigarmak-
erS, who, to the number of 10000, were
brought to New York previous to 1886,
under contract to the cigar factories. These
abuses have now been suppressed, and the
result has been an Improvement in the
btdu0dEu VI Ino
"The most Objectionable people now ar
irving here are the Polish Hebrews. Nearly
all Of them are unskilled tailors, who are
employed by the East-side sweaters
They are wretchedly destitute, and are
driven from Poland by the Russians because
their presence there is obnoxious They ar
rive here without money, and almost with
out clothing, their few belongings having
IN most cases been sold or pawned to
thAnl dur has
long voyage. The friends who come
before send them passage money, and
later on they themselves send for their
families, one or two members coming at
time during the winter months, when fares
are low, until the whole flock is quartered
IN some Ludlow street tenement These
tailors almost invariably remain in New
York few years The more thrifty and
ambitious, after accommodating little CAPT.
tai, become the small merchants who form
distinctive feature of western ana south
ern towns. A few of these Hebrews are
peddlers, who find. their way into the east
ern and middle states, rarely going far
westward
1.-THE Slovack 60 to Pennsylvania to work
as helpers In the mines. They are always
contract laborers, but the matter is man
aged 80 skillfully that the law ID not openly
violated. These people are miserably poor
and filthy In their habits.
1.-The labor law stopped the influx of
cigarmakers in 1856 and diminished the
number Of Bohemians. Those who come
now are artisans or farm laborers, and
many go to the west
There is a noticeable improvement in
the character of our Italian population.
Those who came dozen years ago were
largely OF the criminal classes-bandits and
robbers who were in involuntary exile.
These have either turned their energies to
honest industries or gone elsewhere. Leav-
ing out the criminals, the later arrivals are
not much better than their predecessors,
but the second trippers'-those who have
returned to Italy and brought their fam
lilies here-have been greatly changed. Their
Improved domestic condition, their con-
tact with Americans and their pros
per1ty have aroused their ambitions,
and they are fast becoming good citizens.
The Italians are affectionate by nature and
are anxious to educate their children Their
offspring show a more decided advance
from the status of their parents than those
or any other nationality. The Neapolitan
has supplanted the Irishman as a builder of
railroads, and the wide extension of the
rail systems has scattered the Dago to the
remotest corners of the union.
''The Irish immigrants of later years are
farmers and domestic servants. The former
60 mainly to the rural districts of New
England, where the Yankee farmer is be-
coming extinct, and the girls readily find