Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/174

146 scholar, the lawyer, the clergyman, the physician, the engineer, and others, who, in the course of years, have likewise come here by thousands, and added to the productive wealth of the country in proportion to the greater cost of their education; but I shall confine myself to the class named, which forms the great majority of immigrants.

Dr. Engel computes the cost of raising a manual laborer in Germany at 40 thalers a year for the first five years of his life; at 50 thalers for the next five years; and at 60 thalers from the eleventh to the fifteenth year, thus arriving at an average of 50 thalers per year, or 750 thalers in all. From my knowledge of German life, I consider this estimate as correct as it can be; and, assuming that in this country subsistence costs about twice as much as in Germany, I do not think I shall be far from the truth in doubling Engel's estimates, and in assuming the expense of bringing up an American farmer or unskilled laborer for the first fifteen years of his life to average 100 thalers per year, or a total of 1,500 thalers, equal to about $1,500 currency. Following Dr. Engel's estimate, an American girl will be found to cost only about half of that, or $750, for the reason that she becomes useful to the household from an earlier age. Allowance must be made, it is true, for the fact that about one-fifth of the emigrants are less than fifteen years old; but this is fully balanced by the great preponderance of men over women, and by thousands who represent the highest order of skilled labor. Hence I feel safe in assuming the capital value of each male and female emigrant to be $1,500 and $750 respectively for every person of either sex, making an average for both of $1,125. My friend, Mr. Charles Reemelin, one of the most prominent American political economists, confirmed these figures in a very able address, made before the German Pioneer Association of Cincinnati, on May 26, 1869, in which he estimated the value of each immigrant who had come to that city to live at $1,500, and the total value of the fifty thousand emigrants who have taken up their residence there in the last forty years at seventy-five millions of dollars.

The number of emigrants who have arrived at the port of New York from May 5, 1847, to January 1, 1870, is no less than 4,297,980. Adding to the capital value of $1,125 represented by