The city of New York, being the centre of the commerce of the country, is necessarily the objective point of European emigration, though many of our neighboring seaports receive their proportionate share of the precious human freight. It will be scarcely credited that in the space of twenty-one years, ending with 1867, there arrived at this city alone no less than three million eight hundred and thirty-two thousand four hundred and four immigrants, or a number almost equal in amount to the entire white population of the country at the time of the Revolution. [Footnote 117] Those arrivals included natives of every country in Europe, China, Turkey, Arabia, East and West Indies, South America, Mexico, and the lower British Provinces. Emigrants from Ireland and Germany were of course largely in excess of all others. Until 1861, these two countries were nearly equally represented, the numbers from them for fourteen years previously being respectively 1,107,034 and 979,575, or nearly four fifths of the whole arrivals. Since that year the German element has largely preponderated, and is now equal to one half the entire immigration. England, Scotland, France, and Switzerland follow next in rotation, the northern countries of Europe supplying a respectable number in proportion to their sparse population, and the southern countries, like Spain and Portugal, comparatively few.

[Footnote 117: We are indebted to Bernard Casserly, Esq., the efficient General Superintendent under the Commissioners of Emigration, for the following official report of arrivals at Castle Garden:

1847129,062
1848189,176
1849220,791
1850212,603
1851289,601
1852300,992
1853284,945
1854319,223
1855136,233
1856142,342
1857183,773
185878,589
185979,322
1860105,162
186165,539
186276,306
1863167,844
1864182,396
1865196,352
1866233,418
1867242,730
Total3,832,404

It were beyond the scope of this article to enter into an extended inquiry as to the cause of this unequal abandonment of nationality on the part of our new denizens. The misgovernment of Ireland, which culminated in the terrible famine of 1846-7-8, and the natural affinity of the people of that country for the advantages afforded by free governments, will easily account for the immensity of their numbers who have sought political and social independence in this republic; while the low rewards of labor and the heavy burdens of taxation experienced by the German in his own home, form powerful incentives in his economical mind to change his condition and abandon the fatherland of which he is so justly proud. The same reasons, to a lesser extent perhaps, operate on Englishmen and Scotchmen, with the additional one of the rapid growth of our infant manufactures requiring the experience of the workmen of Leeds, Birmingham, and Glasgow. Spain and Portugal, the pioneers of immigration in former ages, though now not essentially an emigrant people, as a general rule prefer Central and South America, where their languages are spoken and their religion universally established; while France, of all European countries the least disposed to colonization, has, on account of political troubles, sent us many of her best mechanics, and Italy some of her finest artists.

With the influx of such vast unorganized masses of strangers, representing all conditions, ages, and degrees, into one port, and considering the unusual trials and dangers of a long sea-voyage, it is not to be wondered at that a great amount of sickness and distress should be developed; but we are glad to know that all that private benevolence and judicious legislation could do has been done for the unfortunate. Refuges for the destitute and hospitals for the sick have been established in this neighborhood. Employment for the idle, food for the hungry, and transportation for the penniless have been provided by the Commissioners of Emigration with a free and even profuse liberality. Nearly thirty per centumof the total arrivals, each year, have been thus benefited without any cost whatever to the state, the money required being derived from a fund created mainly by a small commutation-tax on each emigrant passenger. Though this fund, as we have said, is especially intended for the protection and support of immigrants, a portion of it has necessarily been expended in the erection or purchase of valuable buildings, requisite for the purposes of the commission, all of which will revert to the state when no longer required for their original objects.[Footnote 118]

[Footnote 118: This property, besides some on Staten Island, consists of one hundred and eight acres of land with water rights, etc., on Ward's Island, in the East River, upon which the commissioners have built very spacious and substantial structures, such as five hospitals capable of accommodating eight hundred patients; four houses of refuge for destitute males and females; a nursery, lunatic asylum, and two chapels, besides a number of residences for the officers of these institutions, out-offices, etc.—See Commissioners' Report, 1868.]

But this is not the only direct pecuniary advantage which we derive from immigration. In 1856 it was ascertained that the average cash means of every person landing at Castle Garden was about sixty-eight dollars, a sum which, considering the improved condition of those who have since arrived, must amount to much more per capita, still, taking the standard of that year, we find that in twenty-one years over three hundred and twenty millions of dollars have been brought to the country and put into direct circulation. Its effect on our shipping interest will be appreciated when we learn that during 1867 there were engaged in the passenger business alone, at this port, two hundred and forty-five sailing vessels and four hundred and four steamships, requiring large investments of capital and employing thousands of men.

It would be impossible to estimate the indirect stimulus given to the general interests of the Union by the acquisition of so much skilled labor and brawny muscle. We can see its developments, however, in the rapid rise of our towns and cities, the superior condition of arts and manufactures, and the extraordinary increase of our agricultural productions. Coming from so many lands, each heretofore celebrated for some peculiar excellence, the European artisan, while he does not necessarily excel his American fellow-workmen in the aggregate, contributes his special knowledge to the general stock of industrial information. The Swede brings his knowledge of metallurgy, the Englishman of woolens, the Italian of silk; the German, of grape culture, and the Frenchman, of those finer fabrics and arts of design for which his country has been so long famous. When the ancient Grecian sculptor designed to make a representation of the human form in all its perfection, he selected, it is said, six beautiful living models, copying from each some member more perfect than the rest, and thus, by the combination of several excellences, modelled a perfect and harmonious whole, in which were combined grace, beauty, and harmony. So the republic, availing itself of the genius and skill which every country sends us so superabundantly, may attain that general superiority in the arts of peace which was formerly divided among many nations.

The destination of this flood of knowledge and strength forms not the least interesting phase of this subject. From the data before us, we find that the State of New York retains about forty-four per cent; the Western States receive over twenty five; the Middle States, eleven; the New England States, eight; the Pacific slope, two, and the Southern States a little less than two per cent, the residue being scattered among various portions of the continent outside of our jurisdiction. The comparatively small number who have sought homes in the South may be accounted for partly by the occurrence of our late civil war, but principally by the peculiar organization of labor in that section before the abolition of slavery. In [the] future we may expect a much greater percentage of people, particularly from Southern Europe, to assist in developing the almost inexhaustible wealth of such states as Georgia and Tennessee. It is to be regretted that no record has been kept of the nationalities and occupations of those who so instinctively choose their favorite sections of our country; but our own everyday experience, and the laws of labor and climate, enable us to form a sufficiently accurate general opinion. Irishmen, though not adverse to agricultural pursuits, generally prefer large cities and towns, like those of New England, where skilled labor is least required in the production of fabrics. The Germans, on the contrary, though quite numerous in New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis, avoid New England, and prefer farming in the Western States, in some of which they already form a majority of the rural population. Englishmen are to be met with either in the Eastern factories or in the Atlantic cities, keeping up a business connection with their countrymen at home. Frenchmen find a market for their superior mechanical skill amid the luxury of large cities, and are seldom tillers of the soil, while a Welsh miner (if he do[es] not find his way to Salt Lake) goes as naturally to Pennsylvania, and the slate quarries of New York and Vermont, as the Swede and Norwegian do to the northern parts of Michigan and Wisconsin. The mode of emigration may have something to do with these selections. The continental nations, particularly the Germans, understand migration better than their insular neighbors, always leaving home in families and groups, and settling down in small colonies where, as in all new countries, union is strength; but the inhabitants of Ireland and the other islands of the United Kingdom too frequently emigrate, one member of a family at a time, without system or organization, to the great disruption of those ties of relationship which are always a bond of unity and a source of comfort, amid the hardships attendant on great changes of habitation.