GERMAN PROGRESS IN NEW YORK.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1282, 14 November 1857, Page 4

GERMAN PROGRESS IN NEW YORK.

[From the New York Slants Zti!ung.~] The consideration of the importance and value of the large body of Germans in this city and its neighbouring towns can bo estimated only by tbe activity and intelligence which these emigrants develop in their new homes. If they excel in arts, trade, commerce, or manufacturing, then their accession must be accounted as beneficial. We are happily able to show that our countrymen here fully realize all their conditions. Mechanical arts, such as tailors, cabinet-makers and shoemakers, are pursued by thousands of Germans, rivalling the best London and Paris make, and their work is sold as such. In point of fact, the many large establishments in these trades could not be carried on without them. Many, if not most of tbe houses, in the eastern portion of the city have been built by German masons and carpenters, and the plumbing, painting, glazing, and tin-roofiog executed by those who were brought up to tbe trade in the fatherland. Tbe plans of some of our most stately edifices, from tbe finished elevation to the rough working drawing, come from tbe many well-known German architects in this city. Tbe best practical furriers are Germans. The best surgical instrument makers are Germans. Many fancy articles, as well as the most difficult branches of enamelling jewellery, which buyers believe to be “imported,” are the productions of German artizans in this city. We meet with German grocers, bakers, and confectioners at every turn. The German hotels are equal in all respects to

tbe same establishments in American hands; and so through tbe innumerable branches of trade,' and forgetting “ matches, and lager-bier,” which give an honest living to many worthy men. Very recently a German invention, furnishing a subotilute for whalebone, has been successfully put in operation in this city. This factory for “ wallosioe” employs nearly a hundred persons, and upwards of 75,000 dollars is invested as capital.

We have a “ German ” dispensary, two societies of German physicians, numbers of German apothecaries, and a number of analytical and manulacturiog chemists furnish a representation for tbe medical profession in all its branches. Twenty public places of worship and upwards of fifty schools speak for religion and education. The “ German Society” is tbe benevolent institution. Ten book stores and five printing establishments, contribute the works of the ancient classic and modern writer to the advancement of learning in which the many professors from Germany instruct this community. In the fine arts we need only point to the opera, the Dusseldorf Gallery, all tbe matinees and soirees musicales, to prove their almost exclusively German character. We give no names : that is unnecessary. We can also allude with satisfaction to the German pianoforte manufactures. The histrionic muse has an altar at tbe theatre. The character of the German merchants in New York is proverbial. —Their bills of exchange are eagerly sought as remittances. During tbe last year the direct trade with Germany from this port employed in its marine a tonnage of upwards of 99,000 tons, numbering 152 arrivals and 120 departures. There are six lines of packets and two lines of steamships. The number of seamen employed was 3,547. The valuation of this trade for the year was 13,193,25-1 dollars ninety cents, of direct imports, and 6,567,570 dollars of direct exports. The indirect trade may be assumed at a higher figure. The number of passengers arriving during the same time was 38,289. Take this population and transplant it into a desert, and will they not constitute a perfectly civilized community? This article cannot be sufficiently extended to give the fullest details, For the intelligence and reading capacity of these, more than one hundred thousand German inhabitants, let our parent with its 18,000 daily subscribers—let the oilier German daily, weekly, and monthly papers, bear conclusive testimony.