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and efficient remedy not dependent on the plans of politicians and enactments of rulers, but to a great extent on individual will and action. It is within the reach of all who have the requisite courage and enterprise, and the small amount of pecuniary means necessary to transport them across the Atlantic. "It is not, therefore, matter of surprise that the stream of immigration should flow fast from the overcharged basin of European population, in whatever direction a suitable outlet can be found that thousands should be leaving their native land, and thousands be preparing to follow, to seek in other climes at once a sphere for their talents and industry, and the means of competent maintenance for themselves and families, content to endure temporary inconvenience and privation to secure the substantial and permanent advantages of independence and competence for themselves, and to perpetuate the same blessings to their offspring.

According to a table in De Bow's Compendium U. S. Census of 1850, the progress of immigration since 1790, has been as follows:

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According to this statement, collated from the reports of the Collectors of the Ports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other seaports, the number of immigrants arrived, during the last eleven years past, exceeds two millions and a half of persons. Enormous as has been the increase, the number actually arrived is no doubt much greater; and this opinion is sustained by the following table, compiled from the reports to Congress, made annually by the Secretary of State, under the act of 1819, which shows the number of passengers arrived in the United States from foreign ports, from October 1, 1843, to January 1, 1855:

From Sept. 30, 1843,

Sept. 30, 1844,..

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..49,290..............1,400...........119,804

66 Sept. 30, 1845,............................... .............. ...90,973..................66,778...............897........ .158,648 66 Sept. 30, 1846,134,750................... .96,747.............1,057..

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Sept. 30, 1847,.................136,128..

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Sept. 30, 1848,. ...............................................179,253..

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Sept. 30, 1849,

...................

..38,282..

66 Dec. 31, 1849..............200,903.

66 Dec. 31, 1850, .........
......................................245,017.

66 Dec. 31, 1851,

66

.232,554

.92,883..
...............472...

.229,843

....119,915.

.309,610

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66 Dec. 31, 1853..

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.....

....284,887..............................175,587..

...............................................1,664,874..............1,105,492..........404,029.........3,174,395

By a published statement of the New York Commissioners of Immigration, it appears that, during the first six months of the year 1855,

there arrived at that port but 69,476, being a decrease, as compared with the same period of the year previous, of 65,275.

It appears from these statistics that the immigration, previous to the year 1840, was comparatively small, and that there was no material increase until 1846, when the Irish exodus commenced. It then rose to 300,000 per annum, and now, with the aid of similar exoduses from Germany, China and other countries, it has swelled to a half million a year. Mr. Kennedy, the Superintendent of the Census, in his report to Congress, in 1851, makes the following estimate of the accessions to our population from immigration, from 1790 to 1850: .

Arrived from 1790 to 1810,............

Increase,...

Arrived from 1810 to 1820,.......

Increase of the above,.........

........

.120,000

.......47,560

..114,000

..19,000

Increase from 1810 to 1820, of those arriving previous to 1810,............................................................................ ....58,450

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Increase from 1820 to '30 of immigrants and descendants of immigrants, in 1820,...134,130

Immigrants and descendants of immigrants in 1830,.

.732,847

Arrived from 1830 to 1840,............................................

.762,369

Increase of the above,................

..129,602

Increase from 1830 to '40 of immigrants and descendants of immigrants, in 1830,...254,445

Immigrants and descendants of immigrants, in 1840,..............................

1,879,263

..1,521,850

Arrived from 1840 to 1850,.............................................
Increase of the above,..

.183,942

Increase from 1840 to '50 of immigrants and descendants of immigrants, in 1840,...719,361 Immigrants since 1790, living in 1850, and descendants of immigrants,..............4,304,416

Professor De Bow, in his Compendium of the Census of 1850, expresses the opinion that Mr. Kennedy's estimate is too high, and gives it as his own that the immigrants and descendants of immigrants did not exceed, in 1853, the number of 3,000,000. Dr. Chickering, a celebrated statistician, and who is generally regarded as good authority, has, however, made an estimate, which exceeds that of Mr. Kennedy, in number.

What the number of the foreign population was at the time Independence was declared, we have no exact data. It has been variously estimated. A recent writer in the New York Evangelist has made a careful analysis of the original elements of our population, and shown conclusively, as had been stated before in the Encyclopædia Americana, that of the thirteen colonies, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, twelve were settled with colonists, who, with a few trifling exceptions, were Englishmen, and he proceeds to estimate the relative proportions of which our composite population consists. Of the increase of popula

tion from the year 1790 to 1850, the date of the last Census, estimated on the most careful grounds, not less than 15,000,000 are, he thinks, of the Anglo-Saxon race. If to these we add the 3,594,762 colored persons, whose increase of course is easily ascertainable, it will leave 4,668,736, of our own aggregate population of 23,263,498, to be divided among Irish, German, French, and other descent-a result which accords with the estimate of Bancroft, and with the common sense view of the subject. An analysis of this foreign population is then made with candor and skill, the process of which we cannot present. The results arrived at are contained in the following table, which will probably surprise many readers, and perhaps furnish a better estimate of the relative moral forces which are at work among us:

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Whole number of Immigrants between 1790 and 1850,....................2,759,329
Survivors of these in 1850,.......

....1,511,990

Whole number of Immigrants and descendants,................................
..4,350,934
Survivors of these,...

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...3,103,094

Total of all our population, exclusive of Anglo-Saxon blood,.......................8,263,498 Whatever the causes which have of late years produced this immense immigration into this country, it is certainly an undeniable fact, that "the palpable and admitted growing influence of the foreign born population of the United States has, for several years past, been a source of anxiety and dissatisfaction to a considerable number of our native citizens. This is so apparent that a writer on the subject of immigration, styling himself a foreigner, frankly admits it, and says: "The Kensington riots, the Southwark disturbances, and the present position of civil, political, and religious feeling, confirm the fact, and render it an important and interesting subject, worthy of the attention and candid consideration of us all." Another fact there is, to which he also refers, and which is probably as incontrovertible as the former, and that is, that "at least ninety out of every hundred of all the immigrants who come to the United States and the Canadas, have been driven to immigration by monarchical oppression, the laws of primogeniture and entail, special and partial legislation, unjust wars, and extravagant government expenditures, patronage and malfeasance-causes, concerning which they have a very imperfect knowledge, and over which they had little or no control."

So far as Ireland is concerned, we have abundant evidence of the causes which have produced so large an immigration from that country. Kohl, the accomplished German traveller, who has visited and described most of the countries of Europe, and is now making a tour through the United States, admits in his book of Travels in Ireland, that he had no

where found the poverty and wretchedness that prevailed among the people of Ireland. He says:

"I remember, when I saw the poor Lettes in Lavonia, I used to, pity them for having to live in huts built of the unhewn logs of trees, the crevices being stopped up with moss. I pitied them on account of their low doors, and their diminutive windows; and gladly would I have arranged their chimneys for them in a more suitable manner. Well, Heaven pardon my ignorance! I knew not that I should ever see a people on whom Almighty God had imposed yet heavier privations. Now that I have seen Ireland, it seems to me that the Lettes, the Esthonians, and the Finlanders, lead a life of comparative comfort, and poor Paddy would feel like a king with their houses, their habiliments, and their daily fare.

"A wooden house, with moss to stop up its crevices, would be a palace in the wild regions of Ireland. Paddy's cabin is built of earth, one shovelful over the other, with a few stones mingled here and there, till the wall is high enough. But perhaps you will say, the roof is thatched or covered with bark. Ay, indeed! A few sods of grass, cut from a neighboring bog, are his only thatch. Well, but a window or two at least, if it be only a pane of glass fixed in the wall, or the bladder of some animal, or a piece of talc, as may often be seen in a Wallachian hut? What idle luxury were this! There are thousands of cabins in which not a trace of a window is to be seen; nothing but a little square hole in front, which doubles the duty of door, window, and chimney; light, smoke, pigs, and children, all must pass in and out of the same aperture!

"A French author, Beaumont, who had seen the Irish peasant in his cabin, and the North American Indian in his wigwam, has assured us that the savage is better provided for than the poor man in Ireland. Indeed, the question may be raised, whether in the whole world a nation is to be found that is subjected to such physical privations as the peasantry in some parts of Ireland. This fact cannot be placed in too strong a light; for if it can once be shown that the wretchedness of the Irish population is without a parallel example on the globe, surely every friend of humanity will feel himself called on to reflect whether means may not be found for remedying an evil of so astounding a magnitude!

"A Russian peasant, no doubt, is the slave of a harder master, but still he is fed and housed to his content, and no trace of mendicancy is to be seen in him. The Hun. garians are certainly not among the best used people in the world; still, what fine wheaten bread, and what wine, has even the humblest among them for his daily fare! The Hungarian would scarcely believe it, if he were to be told there was a country in which the inhabitants must content themselves with potatoes every alternate day in the 'year.

"Servia and Bosnia are reckoned among the most wretched countries of Europe, and certainly the appearance of one of their villages has little that is attractive about it; but at least the people, if badly housed, are well clad. We look not for much luxury or comfort among the Tartars of the Crimea; we call them poor and barbarous, but, good heavens! they look at least like human creatures. They have a national costume, their houses are habitable, their orchards are carefully tended, and their gaily-harnessed ponies are mostly in good condition. An Irishman has nothing national about him but his rags, his habitation is without a plan, his domestic economy without rule or law. We have beggars and paupers among us, but they form at least an exception: whereas, in Ireland, beggary or abject poverty is the prevailing rule. The nation is one of beggars, and they who are above beggary seem to form the exception.

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"The African negroes go naked, but then they have a tropical sun to warm them. The Irish are a little removed from a state of nakedness; and their climate, though not cold, is cool, and extremely humid.

“The Indians in America live wretchedly enough at times, but they have no knowledge of a better condition, and, as they are hunters, they have every now and then a productive chase, and are able to make a number of feast days in the year. Many Irishmen have but one day on which they eat flesh, namely, on Christmas-day. Every other day they feed on potatoes, and nothing but potatoes. Now this is inhuman; for the appetite and stomach of man claim variety in food, and nowhere else do we find human beings gnawing from year's end to year's end, at the same root, berry, or weed. There are animals that do so, but human beings nowhere, except in Ireland.

"There are nations of slaves, but they have, by long custom, been made unconscious of the yoke of slavery. This is not the case with the Irish, who have a strong feeling of liberty within them, and are fully sensible of the weight of the yoke they have to bear. They are intelligent enough to know the injustice done them by the distorted laws of their country; and while they are themselves enduring the extreme of poverty, they have frequently before them, in the manner of life of their English landlords, a spectacle of the most refined luxury that human ingenuity ever invented."

"What awakens the most painful feelings in travelling through one of these rocky, boggy districts, rich in nothing but ruins, is this:—Whether you look back into the past, or forward to the future, no prospect more cheering presents itself. There is not the least trace left to show that the country has ever been better cultivated, or that a happier race ever dwelt in it. It seems as if wretchedness had prevailed there from time immemorial-as if rags had succeeded rags, bog had formed over bog, ruins had given birth to ruins, and beggars had begotten beggars, for a long series of centuries. Nor does the future present a more cheering view. Even for the poor Greeks under Turk ish domination, there was more hope than for the Irish under the English."

Sad and dreary as is the picture drawn of the condition of poor Ireland by this eminent German traveller, he had seen it before the ravages of famine and pestilence had been experienced. What then must be the condition of its people now? An English traveller who passed through the south and west of the Island in 1842, four years before the exhaustion of the soil had produced disease among the potatoes, gave the following description:

"The traveller is haunted by the face of the popular starvation. It is not the exception-it is the condition of the people. In this fairest and richest of countries, men are suffering and starving by millions. There are thousands of them, at this minute, stretched in the sunshine at their cabin doors with no work, scarcely any food, no hope seemingly. Strong countrymen are lying in bed, for the hunger'—because a man lying on his back does not need so much food as a person a-foot. Many of them have torn up the unripe potatoes from their little gardens, and to exist now must look to winter, when they shall have to suffer starvation and cold too."

Frightful as must have been the condition at that time, the cup of misery became full to overflowing, when an almost total failure of the

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