THE IRISH IN NEW YORK.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 272, 19 July 1878, Page 5

THE IRISH IN NEW YORK.

NEW Yokk has been getting up an elaborate census, which contains many valuable statistics. We learn from it that in 18G5 the Irish born population of New York city was 199,084, an increase of 23,349 in twenty years, the same population in 1855 having been 175,735. The smallness of this increase is surprising, considering the constant inpouring of immigrants from Ireland during these two decades. According to these figures there has been a very distinct decline in the relative strength of the native Irish element in New York in the period named. In 1855 the percentage of Irish born residents was 28, and in 1875 it had fallen to 20.

Foreigners of other nationalities, and the native born clement, had increased so much faster than the Irish, that the percentage of the latter had fallen as stated. The total population in 1855 was 629,810, and in 1875 it had risen to 1,041,000. A very large part of the native-born element should, of course, be credited to Irish parentage, and this changes the matter somewhat, though it does not alter the main facts of a relative decline.

The Germans per contra, advanced. They numbered 97,572 in 1855, and in 1875 they were credited with 165,012. Thus, while the increase in the total population was 62 per cent, the German increase was nearly 75 per cent. This is to a great extent accounted for by the German immigration to this country immediately after the war with France.

Of the whole population of New York city, however, only 18 per cent, are unadulterated native, the remaining 82 per cent, being either of foreign birth or foreign parentage. The total number of foreign born was 446,000 and the children born to foreign parents numbered about 400,000. The whole number of Irish in the State of New York in 1875 *ras 517,000, of Germans 367,000 and of English 119,000. The total native-born population in that year was 3,200,000 and the total foreign-born was close on 1,200.000. On the basis given for New York city, the children of foreign parentage in the State should have numbered about I,ooo,ooo.— Pilot.