Alien Immigration. In various countries certain classes of aliens have long been prohibited from gaining admission. In the United States, for instance, admission is refused to such persons as idiots, epileptics, persons suffering from loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases, paupers, criminals (except political criminals), illiterate persons, &c. Chinese labourers as a whole are excluded, and even any persons coming to America under a definite agreement to engage in any kind of labour or service. Similar laws are in force in Australia, where there is a test that a person proposing to settle in the country must be able to write fifty words of a European language. Towards the end of last century the great influx of foreigners into Britain, and into London in particular, drew public attention to the matter. A select committee appointed in 1888 reported in favour of the exclusion of destitute aliens, in 1894 a bill was introduced into the House of Lords, while in 1898 a bill to regulate the immigration of aliens was passed in the Lords, but made no further progress. In 1902 a royal commission was appointed, and drew up a report, published in 1903, containing valuable information and various recommendations. Among these were the establishment of an immigration department, and the granting of powers to deport criminals, prostitutes, and other undesirable aliens, and to prevent the landing of persons mentally unfit or suffering from infectious or loathsome diseases. In 1904 an Aliens Immigration Bill was introduced and read a second time in the House of Commons. It was based on the recommendations of the commission, and in its favour it was argued that a large amount of British labour had been displaced by aliens, in London especially, that the prevalence of crime among aliens was out of proportion to their numbers, that many of them were paupers, criminals convicted in their own country, or other undesirables. In 1905 another bill on the subject was introduced by the Government, which succeeded in passing it, so that the matter can now be dealt with, and undesirable aliens kept out. Since the European War (1914-8) and the new passport regulations it is easy to ascertain the number of aliens that enter the country and settle. At the census of 1901 the whole alien population was set down at 286,925, as against 219,523 in 1891, but there has been a very large influx from 1901 to 1914, by far the largest number consisting of Russian and Polish Jews. The restrictions imposed upon aliens during the European War are still in force, so far as they prohibit landing by any alien, except at specified ports by leave of an immigration officer, and, in case of former enemy aliens, by special permission of the Home Secretary. Cf. J. M. Landa, The Alien Problem.
Aliganj (a-lē-ganj'), a town of Bengal, 54 miles from Dinapur, noted for its pottery. It has a trade in grain, indigo-seed, and cotton, and contains two mosques, and a large mud fort. Pop. 7436.
Aligarh (a-lē-gar'), a fort and town in India, in the United Provinces, on the East Indian railway, 84 miles south-east of Delhi. The town, properly called Koel or Coel, is distant about 2 miles from the fort, and is connected with it by a beautiful avenue. It is handsome and well
situated, and has a trade in cotton, &c. The fort, which had been skilfully strengthened by French engineers in the service of the Mahrattas, was taken by storm after a desperate resistance in 1803 by the British forces under Lord Lake, when the whole district was added to the British possessions. Pop. 64,825. The district has an area of 1946 sq. miles. Pop. 1,165,680.
Align′ment (a-līn′ment), a military term, signifying the act of adjusting to a straight line or in regular straight lines, or the state of being so adjusted.
Al′iment, food, a term which includes everything, solid or liquid, serving as nutriment for the bodily system. Aliments are of the most diverse character, but all of them must contain nutritious matter of some kind, which, being extracted by the act of digestion, enters the blood, and effects by assimilation the repair of the body. Alimentary matter, therefore, must be similar to animal substance, or transmutable into such. All alimentary substances must, therefore, be composed in a greater or less degree of soluble parts, which easily lose their peculiar qualities in the process of digestion, and correspond to the elements of the body. The food of animals consists for the most part of substances containing little oxygen and exhibiting a high degree of chemical combination, in which respects they differ from most substances that serve as sustenance for plants, which are generally highly oxidized and exhibit little chemical combination. According to the nature of their constituents most of the aliments of animals are divided into nitrogenous (consisting of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen along with nitrogen, and also of sulphur and phosphorus) and non-nitrogenous (consisting of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen without nitrogen). Water and salts are usually considered as forming a third group, and, in the widest sense of the word aliment, oxygen alone, which enters the blood in the lungs, forms the fourth. The articles used as food by man do not consist entirely of nutritious substances, but with few exceptions are compounds of various nutritious with indigestible and accordingly innutritious substances. The only nitrogenous aliments are albuminous substances, and these are contained largely in animal food (flesh, eggs, milk, cheese). The principal non-nitrogenous substance obtained as food from animals is fat. Sugar is so obtained in smaller quantities (in milk). While some vegetable substances also contain much albumen, very many of them are rich in starch. Among vegetable substances the richest in albumen are the legumes (peas, beans, and lentils), and following them come the cereals (wheat, oats, &c.). Sugar, water, and salts may pass without any change into the circulatory system; but albuminous substances cannot do so without being first rendered soluble and capable of absorption (in the stomach and intestines); starch must be converted into sugar and fat emulsified (chiefly by the action of the pancreatic juice). One of the objects of cooking is to make our food more susceptible of the operation of the digestive fluids.
The relative importance of the various nutritious substances that are taken into the system and enter the blood depends upon their chemical constitution. The albuminous substances are the most indispensable, inasmuch as they form the material by which the constant waste of the body is repaired, whence they are called by Liebig the substance-formers. But a part of the operation of albuminous nutriments may be performed equally well, and at less cost, by non-nitrogenous substances, that part being the maintenance of the temperature of the body. As is well known, the temperature of warm-blooded animals is considerably higher than the ordinary temperature of the surrounding air, in man about 98° F., and the uniformity of this temperature is maintained by the heat which is set free by the chemical processes (of oxidation) which go on within the body. Now these processes take place as well with non-nitrogenous as with nitrogenous substances. The former are even preferable to the latter for the keeping up of these processes; by oxidation they yield larger quantities of heat with less labour to the body, and they are hence called the heat-givers. The best heat-giver is fat. Albuminous matters are not only the tissue-formers of the body; they also supply the vehicle for the oxygen, inasmuch as it is of such matters that the blood corpuscles are formed. The more red blood corpuscles an animal possesses, the more oxygen can it take into its system, and the more easily and rapidly can it carry on the process of oxidation and develop heat. Now only a part of the heat so developed passes away into the environment of the animal; another part is transformed within the body (in the muscles) into mechanical work. Hence it follows that the non-nitrogenous articles of food produce not merely heat but also work, but only with the assistance of albuminous matters, which, on the one hand, compose the working machine, and, on the other hand, convey the oxygen necessary for oxidation.
The wholesome or unwholesome character of any aliment depends, in a great measure, on the state of the digestive organs in any given case, as also on the method in which it is cooked. Very often a simple aliment is made indigestible by artificial cookery. In any given case the digestive power of the individual is to be considered in order to determine whether a particular aliment is wholesome or not. In general, therefore, we can only say that that aliment is healthy
which is easily soluble, and is suited to the power of digestion of the individual. Man is fitted to derive nourishment both from animal and vegetable aliment, but can live exclusively on either. The nations of the North incline generally more to animal aliments; those of the South, and the Orientals, more to vegetable. The inhabitants of the most northerly regions live almost entirely upon animal food, and very largely on fat on account of its heat-giving property. See Dietetics, Digestion, Adulteration, &c.
Alimentary Canal, a common name given to the œsophagus, stomach, and intestines of animals. See Œsophagus, Intestine, Stomach.