THE JEW AS IMMIGRANT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1508, 24 January 1901, Page 59

THE JEW AS IMMIGRANT.

A writer in the “Atlantic Monthly," discussing the characteristics of the stream of immigrants into the United States, has high praise for the Jew. A study of even the most povertystricken and forlorn of the r'ecent Jewish immigrants shows them to he a temperate, moral, and industrious people. If the life and health of a nation depend largely, a.s some philosophers of history claim that they do, on the physical vi_ tality of its individual citizens, the Hebrew race certainly add an element of value to the community that cannot be despised. Notwithstanding the crowded conditions in which they live, notwithstanding the unwholesome tenements, the low damp ground of the quarter, and the universal filth, Jewish dwellers on the East Side in New York have a far lower deaih-rate than is shown by any other foreign element in the city, and, strange it may seem-, a perceptibly lower death-rate than even that of the well-to-do native dwellers in wholesome uptown wards. So far as analysis can account for it, this vitality seems to be founded on moral habits, a most useful ingredient in a modern state. Family affection is strong among them. Reverence for parents is taught and practised. They are not found in the police-courts and prisons in any noticeable proportion, and, remarkable indeed in view of their extreme poverty, they do not come habitually upon charity. A striking characteristic among them is a desire for improvement. The adults among them, devitalised by long years in an atmosphere of oppression may themselves trudge along for a while in the treadmill of the sweatshop, but they have other ambitions for their children. Even within so short a time as has passed since their coming here one may note a remarkable advancement. The casual visitor to the East Side today will see apparently the same old patriarchs with side curls and velvet caps, the same mothers in Israel, with wigs awry -and! linfants multitudinous, that he saw yesterday. But this is a human stream in which, while it looks the same, the individual elements are always changing. The old man in the gabardine one saw la-st \Veek has now pub on the garb of America and moved uptown with hi s family. This one that you took for him- W iiTCt.

emigrant ship. Next'week, he. too, will he me. The rate of change, of course, is not literally so rapid aT this, but it is sufficiently so as to be astonishing. It is only 16 years since this people began to come here at a U ; it is only eight years since Jewish immigration reached high-water mark with GG-00J arrivals from, Russia alone at the port of New Yorjc. But they have already learned the principles pf industrial combination, have sent their children to and through the schools and even the colleges, and ar e seeing these children almost without exception advance to an industrial and social grade higher than their own. Sig_ nificant testimony to the scope and rapidity of the change is the complaint of workers in the different social settlements that they cannot keep their hold on individuals from year to year on account of the many removals. The University Settlement, in the heart of the Ghetto, makes up its classes with a practically new membership each year, and' the College Settlement near by lias the same experience.