.23 per cent had come over the sea,
to better themselves, it may be assumed. Let us see what they brought
us, and what we have given them in return.

The Italians were in the majority where this census-taker went. They
were from the south of Italy, avowedly the worst of the Italian
immigration, which in the eleven years from 1891 to 1902 gave us nearly
a million of Victor Emmanuel's subjects. The exact number of Italian
immigrants, as registered by the Emigration Bureau, from July 1, 1891,
to June 1, 1902, a month short of eleven years, was 944,345. And they
come in greater numbers every year. In 1898, 58,613 came over, of whom
36,086 gave New York as their destination. In 1901 the Italian
immigrants numbered 138,608, and as I write shiploads with thousands
upon thousands are afloat, bound for our shores. Yet there is a gleam of
promise in the showing of last year, for of the 138,608, those who came
to stay in New York numbered only 67,231. Enough surely, but they were
after all only one-half of the whole against two-thirds in 1898. If this
means that they came to join friends elsewhere in the country--that
other centres of immigration have been set up--well and good. There is
room for them there. Going out to break ground, they give us more than
they get. The peril lies in their being cooped up in the city.

[Illustration: Bedroom in the New City Lodging House.]

Of last year's intake 116,070 came from southern Italy, where they wash
less, and also plot less against the peace of mankind, than they do in
the north. Quite a lot were from Sicily, the island of the absentee
landlord, where peasants die of hunger. I make no apology for quoting
here the statement of an Italian officer, on duty in the island, to a
staff correspondent of the _Tribuna_ of Rome, a paper not to be
suspected of disloyalty to United Italy. I take it from the _Evening
Post_:

"In the month of July I stopped on a march by a threshing-floor where
they were measuring grain. When the shares had been divided, the one who
had cultivated the land received a single _tumolo_ (less than a half
bushel). The peasant, leaning on his spade, looked at his share as if
stunned. His wife and their five children were standing by. From the
painful toil of a year this was what was left to him with which to feed
his family. The tears rolled silently down his cheeks."

These things occasionally help one to understand. Over against this
picture there arises in my memo