righter or more attentive. There is good
blood in the Italian strain. They are an art and music-loving people,
and in this respect the southern Italians take the lead. They come from
a land of beauty and fame, song and sunshine, and bring a sunny
temperament not easily soured by hardship or disappointment. Otherwise
the tenement and labor-camp experiences in America would soon spoil
them. With the exception of the money they earn, the change has been for
the worse.

[Sidenote: Amazing Thrift]

The thrift of the Italians is proverbial. To earn and save money they
will live in conditions unsanitary, unhealthy, and degrading. It is not
because they love dirt and degradation, but that they want money so much
that they will put up with anything to get it. They can live and save a
bit where an American family would starve. They have fairly monopolized
for a time certain lines into which they entered--as the small fruit
trade, the bootblacking business, and other pursuits. It is said that
they have made the Americans a fruit-eating people. Supplanted in the
street-vending of fruit by the Greek, the Italian has gone into business
in earnest, and you find the small fruit stands everywhere, with always
a good stock, and by no means a low price. As barbers and tailors, too,
the Italians are becoming known. They have a passion for land, and
acquire property rapidly. Take the increase of their real estate
holdings in New York as an example. Mr. G. Tuoti, a representative
Italian operator in real estate, says that twenty years ago there was
not a single Italian owner of real estate in the districts where such
owners now predominate. He has a list of more than 800 landowners of
Italian descent, whose aggregate holdings in New York are approximately
$15,000,000.[57]

[Illustration: Born in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, Greece--Resident
in the United States 1900

Reproduced by special permission from "The Worker's
World." Copyright 1903.]

[Sidenote: Property Holdings]

As to Italian savings and investments in the same city, Mr. Gino C.
Speranza, vice-president of the Society for Italian Immigrants, finds on
computation the Italian investments in the city savings-banks to total
more than $15,000,000. He puts the real estate holdings at 4,000, of the
clear value of $20,000,000. He estimates that 10,000 stores in the city
are owned by Italians, and sets their value at $7,000,000, with a
further investment of as much more in whol