n. Here again they appear rather to the disadvantage of the older
type of immigrant. The United States Industrial Commission on
Immigration shows, by its statistical report,[55] that "taking the
United States as a whole, the whites of foreign birth are a trifle less
criminal than the total number of whites of native birth." This report
further says: "Taking the inmates of all penal and charitable
institutions, we find that the highest ratio is shown by the Irish,
whose proportion is more than double the average for the foreign-born,
amounting to no less than 16,624 to the million."

[Sidenote: Italians Temperate]

By far the greatest proportion of crime is caused by intemperance, and
here the Italians are at a decided advantage, for they are among the
least intemperate of the foreign peoples, and far less so than the
average native-born. Arrests for drunkenness are exceedingly rare among
them, and a drunken Italian woman is as rare as one of immoral
character. While in Massachusetts three in a hundred of the northern
races, including the Scotch, Irish, English, and Germans, were arrested
for intemperance in a given year, only three in a thousand of the
Italians were arrested on this charge. In these respects the race is
deserving of great commendation, especially in face of the tenement
conditions into which most of the newcomers are thrust. If they become
worse in America than they were when they came, we ought to take heed to
the sins of greed, and not put all the blame on the aliens.

[Sidenote: Crimes of Assault]

In crimes against the person the Italians are at their worst, but the
affrays with knives and pistols are confined mostly to their own
nationality, and grow out of jealousy or rivalry or resentment at
fancied injuries. "There are, no doubt," says Dr. S. J. Barrows,[56]
"murders of sheer brutality, or those committed in the course of
robbery. There are known instances also of blackmail and dastardly
assassination by individuals or bands of ruffians. But such outrages are
utterly at variance with the known disposition of the great mass of the
Italians in this country. There are vile men in every nationality, and
it does not appear by any substantial evidence that the Italian is
peculiarly burdened, though it has been unwarrantably reproached through
ignorance or prejudice." This is the opinion of an expert in
criminology, who has traveled extensively in Italy and knows the people
on both sides of the sea