Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/615

Rh immigrants from the country or of their immediate descendants. Dr. Amnion, of Carlsruhe, in a most suggestive work which we have constantly cited in these pages, has carefully analyzed in detail the populations of certain representative cities in Baden. In Carlsruhe and Freiburg, for example, he found that among the conscripts examined for military service an overwhelming proportion of the residents were either immigrants themselves or else the children of immigrants. Less than eight per cent, in fact, were the children of city-born parents—that is to say, were the outcome of three generations of continued urban residence. In a similar investigation of other German cities, Hansen found that nearly one half their residents were of direct country descent. In London it has been shown that over one third of its population are immigrants; and in Paris the same is true. For thirty of the principal cities of Europe it has been calculated that only about one fifth of their increase is from the loins of their own people, the overwhelming majority being of country birth. One direct result of this state of affairs is that cities as a rule contain more than their due proportion of middle-aged adults. They do not immigrate until they have attained majority; they do not marry till comparatively late in life, so that children and young persons form an unusually small percentage of the entire population. The aged, moreover, often betake themselves to the country after the stress of life is abated. They return to their place of birth, there to spend the last days in peace. These latter, together with those who are driven back to their homes by the fierce competitions of city life, constitute a certain feeble counter current of migration from the city outward. Yet this is insignificant compared with the inflowing tide. Thousands are yearly pouring into the towns, while those who emerge may be numbered by hundreds, perhaps even by scores. The fact is that the great majority of these immigrants either fall by the way: or else their line, lacking vitality, dwindling in numbers either through late marriages and few children, or else the opposite extreme of overproduction and abnormal mortality, comes to naught in a few generations. Thus the steady influx of immigration goes on. Truly, cities are, as has been observed, "consumers of population." Our problem here is to determine whether such consumption is being applied equally to all our racial types; if not, the future of Europe, ethnically, can not but be profoundly affected. The future character of European peoples will be largely determined by this circumstance. From the point of view of relative increase, the German nation is undoubtedly in the lead, especially as compared with the