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New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 434, 5 August 1881, Page 7

The announcement made on Monday last in the German Parliament that German immigration had reached a higher figure during the past month than at any period of the last ten years is ominously significant. It becomes doubly so from being coupled by its utterer — the leader of the Progressist Party — with the assertion that this i 3 so because " the labourers and artisans are in such a miserable condition." This is the price paid by Germany for the triumphs of 1870, and for Prince Bismarck's audacious experiments in political economy. But such a tribute is too exhausting to last. The rapid diminution of a class which is the life and marrow of Germany, which fills her coffers aud recruits her armies, will deplete her as Spain waa depleted by the Moorish exodus. She does not, however, suffer alone. Norway aud Sweden are being gradually dispeopled by the same cause. Kussia has in vain tried to meet it by the increased rigour in her passport system. The passports of passengers going by sea from St. Petersburgb. to Sweden are not examined at starting, and in this way many emigrants escape undetected to America. Drunkenness is surely one of the greatest of sins. It ib the destioyer of happy homes, and the death of thousands, who have unfortunately yielded to its terrible curse. In an interview lately, the keeper of the Morgue of this city (New York), where 5000 bodies arc annually brought from hospitals, accidents and rivers, declared that the great feeder of the Morgue is not disappointed love, broken ambition, dire want, or cruel neglect, but drunkenness. " Eight cases out of ten," said the keeper, " can be attributed to that in the indirect cause," or, in other words, that 4000 of the 5000 violent deaths are due to this cause. It is a terrible temperurfce lecture. — Catltolie Review.