No. 27. Wholesale prices: 1890 to 1899, by Roland P. Falkner, Ph. D. (a) Foreign labor laws: Germany, by W. F. Willoughby. (a) No. 28. Voluntary conciliation and arbitration in Great Britain, by J. B. McPherson. (a) System of adjusting wages, etc., in certain rolling mills, by J. H. Nutt. (a) Foreign labor laws: Austria, by W. F. Willoughby. (a) No. 29. Trusts and industrial combinations, by J. W. Jenks, Ph. D. The Yukon and Nome gold regions, by S. C. Dunham. No. 30. Trend of wages from 1891 to 1900. Statistics of cities. Foreign labor laws: Various European countries, by W. F. Willoughby. Present status of employers' liability in the U. S., by S. D. Fessenden. No. 32. Accidents to labor as regulated by law in the U. S., by W. F. Willoughby. The Negroes of Sandy Spring, Md.: A social study, by W. T. Thom, Ph. D. The British workmen's compensation act and its operation, by A. M. Low. No. 33. Foreign labor laws: Australasia and Canada, by W. F. Willoughby. The British conspiracy and protection of property act and its operation, by No. 34. Labor conditions in Porto Rico, by Azel Ames, M. D. Social economics at the Paris Exposition, by Prof. N. P. Gilman. The workmen's compensation act of Holland. No. 35. Cooperative communities in the United States, by Rev. Alexander Kent. The Negro landholder of Georgia, by W. E. B. Du Bois, Ph. D. No. 36. Statistics of cities. Statistics of Honolulu, H. I. No. 37. Railway employees in the United States, by Samuel McCune Lindsay, Ph. D. The Negroes of Lifwalton, Va.: A social study of the "Oyster Negro," by William Taylor Thom, Ph. D. No. 38. Labor conditions in Mexico, by Walter E. Weyl, Ph. D. The Negroes of Cinclare Central Factory and Calumet Plantation, La., by No. 39. Course of wholesale prices, 1890 to 1901. No. 40. Present condition of the hand-working and domestic industries of Germany, by Henry J. Harris, Ph. D. Workmen's compensation acts of foreign countries, by Adna F. Weber. No. 41. Labor conditions in Cuba, by Victor S. Clark, Ph. D. Beef prices, by Fred C. Croxton. No. 42. Statistics of cities. Labor conditions of Cuba. No. 43. Report to the President on anthracite coal strike, by Carroll D. Wright.(a) No. 44. Factory sanitation and labor protection, by C. F. W. Doehring, Ph. D. No. 45. Course of wholesale prices, 1890 to 1902. No. 46. Report of Anthracite Coal Strike Commission. No. 47. Report of the Commissioner of Labor on Hawaii. No. 48. Farm colonies of the Salvation Army, by Commander Booth Tucker. No. 49. Cost of living. Labor conditions in New Zealand, by Victor S. Clark, Ph. D. No. 50. Labor unions and British industry, by A. Maurice Low. Land values and ownership in Philadelphia, by A. F. Davies. No. 51. Course of wholesale prices, 1890 to 1903. The union movement among coal-mine workers, by Frank J. Warne, Ph. D. No. 52. Child labor in the United States, by Hannah R. Sewall, Ph. D. No. 53. Wages and cost of living. No. 54. The working of the United States Bureau of Labor, by Carroll D. Wright. a Bulletin out of print. No. 54. Housing of the working people in the U. S. by employers, by G. W. W. Hanger. Trade and technical education in the United States. Labor legislation in the United States, by G. A. Weber. Labor conditions in Hawaii. No. 55. Building and loan associations in the U. S., by G. W. W. Hanger. No. 56. Influence of trade unions on immigrants, by Carroll D. Wright. No. 57. Course of wholesale prices, 1890 to 1904. Street railway employment in the United States, by Walter E. Weyl, Ph. D. No. 58. Labor conditions in the Philippines, by Victor S. Clark, Ph. D. Labor conditions in Java, by Victor S. Clark, Ph. D. The new Russian workingmen's compensation act, by I. M. Rubinow. No. 59. Wages and hours of labor in manufacturing industries, 1890 to 1904. Retail prices of food, 1890 to 1904. Laws relating to child labor in European countries. No. 60. Government industrial arbitration, by Leonard W. Hatch, A. M. Early organizations of printers, by Ethelbert Stewart. No. 62. Municipal ownership in Great Britain, by Frederic C. Howe, Ph. D.(a) Conciliation in the stove industry, by John P. Frey and John R. Commons.(a) No. 63. Course of wholesale prices, 1890 to 1905. No. 64. Conditions of living among the poor, by S. E. Forman. Benefit features of British trade unions, by Walter E. Weyl, Ph. D. No. 65. Wages and hours of labor in manufacturing industries, 1890 to 1905. Retail prices of food, 1890 to 1905. No. 66. Third report of the Commissioner of Labor on Hawaii. No. 67. Conditions of entrance to the principal trades, by Walter E. Weyl, Ph. D., and A. M. Sakolski, Ph. D. Cost of industrial insurance in the District of Columbia, by S. E. Forman. No. 68. Free public employment offices in the United States, by J. E. Conner, Ph. D. Laws of foreign countries relating to employees on railroads, by Lindley D. Clark, A. M., LL. M. • Bulletin out of print. THE ITALIAN ON THE LAND: A STUDY IN IMMIGRATION. BY EMILY FOGG MEADE. INTRODUCTION. The present agitation for the further restriction of immigration is especially directed against the Greeks, Poles, Austro-Hungarians, and Italians from southern Italy and Sicily, who have been coming in ever-increasing numbers since 1870, until in 1905 our immigrants numbered 1,026,499, the Italians ranking second in number with 221,479. Gen. Francis A. Walker was one of the carly opponents to the reception of immigrants of these nationalities. He said: "They have none of the inherited instincts and tendencies which make it comparatively easy to deal with the immigration of the older times. They are beaten men from beaten races, the worst failures in the struggle for existence." Recent issues of newspapers and magazines teem with articles on the danger of admitting these people. It is alleged that they are underfed, ill grown, often diseased, unskilled, illiterate, quiescent, lacking in responsibility, with a keen sense of inferiority and the lack of ability to take advantage of new circumstances; that their standard of living is low, and that they do not improve it when they prosper; above all, that they are likely to become public charges in hospitals, insane asylums, or almshouses. It is furthermore stated that it is no longer the strong and independent who come, but the weak and incompetent, for whom immigration is made easy by the inducements offered by steamship companies. These people huddle together in our large cities, complicating the problems of municipal authorities. In the earlier days the "digging"-the rough work distasteful to Americans was done by Germans. As the Germans moved up in the scale of living they were succeeded by the Irish, and they in turn by Poles and Hungarians, and the latter finally by the Italians. The Italians have been especially stigmatized by the nature of their work. Americans regard them only as dirty, undersized foreigners, who trundle hand organs, tend fruit stands, sweep the streets, or work in mines, in tunnels, on railroads, or in construction work. The newspapers are full of lurid tales of fights in which the stiletto is in evidence, of cowardly stabbing in the back, of organized gangs of Italian criminals, and there is frequently an expression of doubt as to whether the Italians can rise in the social scale as the immigrants of other nationalities have done. In the meantime the demand for rough and heavy work increases, and the Italians come in large numbers, settling in the seaboard cities, where they are often without work in the winter time. Only within the last few years has anyone had a good word to say for them. The salient points of the different articles on the subject of Italian immigration have been recently summarized in "The Italian in America." (a) The southern Italians constitute a simple peasant class, who live in extreme poverty and give the largest portion of what they produce to taxes, rent, and tithes. They are hard-working farmers, whose efforts have met with meager returns; they look toward America as the "land of the dollar," and in their desire to make money mortgage their little properties, their live stock, and their tools at high rates of interest to get money enough to send a father or son to New York. Explanation of their crowding into the large cities is very simple. These people do not come from isolated farms but from crowded villages; they are naturally gregarious and seek their own people who can speak their language. They are ignorant of our farming conditions; the years of unremunerative toil in Italy often make them dislike farming, and then, too, they have no money with which to locate in the South or West. In New York or other cities they find work and friends, and as a result their training in agriculture goes for nothing, and they are counted as the lowest kind of unskilled laborers. Americans generally, unfamiliar with the underlying causes of the congestion of Italians in large cities, believe them to be unfit for farm life. In 1896 a Government commissioner requested the officials of the different States to express their wishes in regard to immigration. Only two States desired Italians. The various State immigration officers in the South show a similar prejudice even now. Evidence is abundant that the Italians in our large cities, in spite of the dangerous influence of the slums, are advancing socially and are becoming Americanized. Nevertheless, the menace of congested conditions, the continuous physical deterioration of these people in cities, and the need of developing large areas of southern lands would seem to be reasons for trying to direct this immigration to that section of the country. a Eliot Lord, New York, 1905. As a contribution to the growing movement to attract immigration to the land, a minute study has been made of the economic, social, and moral condition of the Italians of a typical rural settlement, in order to show what the southern Italian-the lowest class of immigrant-can do to advance himself in the midst of an American farming community, and to answer the question, Can the Italian immigrant become a good American? The town of Hammonton, in Atlantic County, N. J., has been selected for the investigation, because the increase of the Italian population in that section has been natural; it has not been stimulated or assisted in any way by Americans, and the immigrant has been thrown upon his own resources and has been left to follow his own bent. Other significant features of the Hammonton settlement are as follows: (1) The immigration has in no way been stimulated except by the Italian farmers themselves; (2) the large number of permanent residents; (3) the annual migration of city Italians to Hammonton during the picking season, which keeps Hammonton Italians in close touch with their fellow-countrymen and diffuses a knowledge of the colony among Italians in Philadelphia and New York, and (4) the Italian farmers with few exceptions come from southern Italy and from Sicily. Hammonton, in other words, is one of a very few Italian settlements in the United States where an American and an Italian population have grown up together, moved by the same impulses to come to the town, following the same occupations, and living side by side as neighbors. In Hammonton are found the results of twenty years' contact of a typical American population with the lowest class of Sicilian immigrants. It is a safe conclusion that what the Italian has been able to accomplish in Hammonton he can achieve elsewhere under similar circumstances. THE COMING OF THE ITALIANS. It has been more than thirty years since Italians first came to Hammonton, and sufficient time has elapsed for a second generation to grow up and to demonstrate what kind of an American citizen can be made out of an Italian born and reared in the country and associated with Americans as neighbors, in school, or in business. The Italian pioneers came to southern New Jersey for the same reasons that settlers came from New York and New England. They were looking for homes not too far from the seaboard, where the climate was congenial and the land cheap. Southern New Jersey was new territory. Up to 1850 the pine barrens were looked upon as waste land, and they were indeed barren from the standpoint of the dairyman or the grain grower. The climate and the forests, however, attracted a few settlers prior to 1860, when the land was first offered for sale. The civil war stimulated a demand for fruits and vegetables, |