the weight of a great truth, or the importance of a solemn duty. The hasty and careless performance of a ceremony, whose hurried administration commonly turns it into mere rigmarole, is not a safe or decent mode of creating citizens for a great republican empire. It degrades and cheapens our national privileges in our own eyes, as well as in those of the recipient. No ignorant man is likely to consider that responsibility very dignified, which he undertakes at the mere solicitation of a politician, by the payment of a few shillings or of nothing at all, and by the swearing of a few indistinct oaths, administered by a careless understrapper, in a side-room or dirty office.

There can, of course, be no reasonable objection to the admission of aliens to the full enjoyment of our citizenship, provided only they be fit for the trust. It would be a sad departure from the lofty ground of benevolent and impartial justice and freedom, upon which our government is founded, to proclaim, that hereafter the accident of birth alone shall determine the political power of all inhabitants of the United States, and that none coming from without their limits, good or bad, shall ever acquire the rights within them which our nation has ever held to be fundamental rights of man. That would be an unworthy political bigotry. But it is time that our naturalization laws, and the administration of them, were put upon a safer footing.

Foreigners should be required to show, that they have, at least, been here a sufficient time to permit them to learn the duties of an American citizen. They should be required, not only, as now, to prove the vague generalities of the statute that they "have behaved as men of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same"--but to give, as in the case of residence, some tangible proof, aside from an oath, that they are capable of intelligent attachment to our institutions. They should be required to show, in the presence of the authority admitting them, that they can speak and read reasonably well, the language in which was originally

written the Constitution of the United States. And, lastly, the duty of admission, and the attendant examinations, should be confided only to men whose weight and dignity of character, and high official trust, prove them capable of appreciating the importance of the duty, and of performing it honestly. No official of lower grade than the judge. of a State court of record, should be allowed to determine upon the qualifications or admissibility of aliens, applying for the important trust of citizenship of the United States.

UNITED STATES AND IMMIGRATION.

"In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its directions, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass." JEFFERSON.

FOR three-quarters of a century, a great, steady, and increasing stream of Europeans has flowed westward, across the Atlantic Ocean, into the United States. Commencing at the rate of one or two thousand a year, it now averages four hundred thousand annually.

The causes of this great modern exodus are easily understood. They have always been moderate circumstances, poverty, misfortune, crime, or political offences in Europe; and the hopes of better days, more wealth, peace, ease, freedom, and happiness here.

Of late, special causes have given a great stimulus to the movement. The barbarous evictions of poor cotters in Ireland; political reactions, and consequent oppressive government measures, on the Continent; the unsettled horizon of the European future, which is cloudy with the shadows of continued wars; the organized operations of governments and private individuals to send hither the paupers and criminals who accumulate in their almshouses and jails,-have, for the last few years, powerfully co-operated with the universal instinctive desire after profit, peace, and freedom.

Of European emigrants to the United States, the great majority are from what are there termed "the humbler classes." They are usually agricultural laborers or mechanics, and include only a very small proportion of persons educated, or of easy fortune. There is also among them an entirely disproportionate excess of absolute paupers, hospital patients, and criminals—a fact due to the organized expatriation of such persons, above alluded to.

The statements which follow will furnish a competent general view of the number, character, source, distribution, and moral and educational condition of the foreign immigration into our Union.

There are now in this country about three millions of persons born without the territories of the United States; and of foreigners and their descendants born within the United States, about four millions. Of these three millions, more than four-fifths have come since 1830, and considerably more than half since 1840. The annual addition to the number-which was, in 1790, about two thousand—was, in 1820, nearly five thousand, and after that time rapidly increased, until it ranged at twenty-seven thousand in 1830, eighty-four thousand in 1840, one hundred and forty thousand in 1845, two hundred and eighty thousand in 1850, and rose to its greatest number thus far, during the year 1854-about four hundred and sixty thousandwithout any indications having as yet appeared that the maximum has been reached.

Of the four millions of foreigners and their descendants, Ireland has usually sent a larger portion than any other one country, and Germany the next greatest. For the last year or two, however, the German contingent has been fast increasing, and, in 1854, was more than double the Irish, and nearly half of the whole.

These four millions belong, by birth or immediate descent, to the undermentioned countries, in the following round numbers, which are, however, nearly correct: To Ireland, about one million; to England, Scotland, and Wales, more than half a million (making a total from the British islands of about one million five hundred and seventy thousand); to Germany, nine hundred thousand; to the remainder of North America-namely, Mexico, West Indies, and Canadas-about two hundred thousand; to France (including Belgium), seventy-five thousand; to Switzerland, twenty-five thousand; to Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), twenty-four thousand; to Asia, Africa, and East Indies (about three-fourths of all being Chinese), twenty thousand; to the south of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, Sardinia, Greece, and Turkey) twelve thousand; to South America, fifteen hun