The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-12-12
Christmas Remittances to Europe.

During the month of December in each
year there is transmitted by persons resi-
lent in New York, or in the neighborhood
of the city, a sum roughly estimated at
$5. 200, 900. The money goes by postal
order, draft, purser-proxy, or otherwise
from the senders to friends or relatives liv-
ing abroad. These remittances are, for the
most part, holiday presents, intended as
pleasant and graceful reminders of the
Christmas season Of ~gift-making and good
cheer from those on this side the Atlantic
to those whose circumstances prevent them
from coming to the New World.
The aggregate of the international money
orders sent by persons in the United States
in q rear to foreign countries amounts to
about 900, 900 in number. The average
amount is $40, bringing the total amount
Of such remittances up to $15, 900 900. On
the other hand, the number of money orders
issued in foreign lands for payment to per-
sons residing in the United States amounts
in a year to about 100000, or one-third as
many as the outgoing money orders, n
the average amount of each being SUBJ
stantially the same, $15, the receipts on
this side of the Atlantic. or rather in the
United States, for many Of the remittances
are from canada and some are from South
and Central America and the West Indies,
aggregate about So, 600, 900. Through this
channel of international postal communica-
tion, therefore, our country pays out &c.
100000 u year more than it receives.
1t has long been the homely and gracious
custom of many persons of foreign nativity
or ancestry, resident in the United States,
and particularly those of German, Swiss,
Swedish, Dutch, Danish, or Norwegian
birth or descent, to remember the old folks
at home at Christmas time. The custom,
too, has a general and q generous observ-
ance among Irishmen and Irishwomen,
though the Irish-American residents of the
United States are sending remittances
to Ireland all through the year. The
Christmas gifts of money are intended in
part to promote the emigration of the
younger generation to the United States,
and in part to promote the cheerfulness of
the holiday season on the other side of the
Atlantic; and it must be remembered that
the actual purchasing power of the money
sent abroad is in most European countries
greater than it is here, where wealth is
more generally distributed, and the compen-
sation of labor is larger.
On a single day this week 10000 money
orders were sent abroad, amounting to
more than $500, 900. 1t is a somewhat Gu.
rious fact that while one-half the total NUN.
Der of such money orders went to Great
Britain and to Ireland, twice as many as
were sent to Germany, the total sum of the
remittances to Germany was twice as
large as all the remittances TO England,
Ireland, and Scotland. That is to say, the
remittances to Germany were fewer in mum.
Der but larger in amount. twenty-five pei
cent. of the money orders had for their des.
tination the three Scandinavian countries,
Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The re.
mittances to France were few. To Spain
and Russia there were practically no such
r~emittances. Some went to Italy. but not
a large number as compared with the Other
European countries.
Money-order remittances to the folks
across the seal A happy and wholesome
incident of the holiday season in the United
States, the great republic of open doors and
open purses.