THE IRISH IX THE UNITED STATES.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 42, 18 October 1900, Page 10

THE IRISH IX THE UNITED STATES.

IN a recent number of the American Catholic Quarterly Review there is an interesting article on Irish immigration by Mr. H. S. Desmond of Milwaukee. The writer says : — During the present century four and a half million people oi' Irish birth emigrated to the United States, and at the close of the century there are more than live millions of Americans of Irish parentage. The close of the century finds more people of Iri«h parentage in the United States than in Ireland, which has sent more colonists to North America durinar the nineteenth centnrv than all Europe in 300 years. Three-fifths of the Irish immigrants and their descendants reside in the New Enu-land States, and something over one-fourth in the 12 North Central States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin. Missouri, lowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota. The circumstances of territorial distribution have decidedly influenced their occupations and tocial condition. In the North Central States nearly one-half of them are farmers, but in the other parts of the country but 15 per cent, are engaged in agricultural pursuits. In regard to the other occupations these statistics will serve to show tho advance made during the 10 years between 1660 and 18' JO .

Of the whole population of the country, 21 per cent, are f irmers , of the Irish population, 10 per cent. In 1880 23 per cent, of rhe Irish were laborers, in ISW but 1!> per cent. Both the Irish :v d Gvrmms are leaving the liquor business. In ISKO the German siloon-keep rs numU-re I 21 000 , In l.H'.to IS 200. The Irish iv 1880 w. n- ,s"ii)() , m Lvju 7")00 These figures should encourage the total ab-tinen c advocates The total policemen of the country were 71 (>2:» in l,v.K>. 12,5i t0 of whom were Irish. One out of every seven of the In-h working population in ISM) waa engaged as a female dome-tic servant ; now only one out of l(i is thua occupied. There are more doctors, lawyers, and authors among the second generation than there are saloon-keepers, and more than three times as many t^achcis as policemen. The s e cmd generation is not filling the ianks of the priesthood as readily as the parent stock, but their great increase in all the professions, and especially in the desks of authority in the schools, is noteworthy. The article furnishes much food for r, H >ction. and shows how the bulk of the Irish people are seizing their opportunities for advancement.