Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1893 — Our Criminals and Paupers. [ARTICLE]

Our Criminals and Paupers.

Of the convicts in our penitentiaries 48 per cent, are of native parentage, while 52 per cent, are of foreign birth and parentage; or, in other words, while persons of foreign birth and parentage furnish a little more than onethird of the total white population of the country, they furnish more than half of the criminals. Of the paupers in almshouses 41 per cent, are of native parentage, and 59 per cent, of foreign birth or parentage. Again it will be noticed that while persons of foreign birth or parentage furnish only one-third of the population, they supply nearly two-thirds of the paupers in almshouses. In this last case, however, it is proper to go a little more into detail. Of the 59 per cent, of paupers of foreign birth or parentage only 8 per cent, are born in this country, while 51 per cent, are for-eign-born. These last figures are startling. The foreign-born constitute only 17 per cent, of our total white population—in round numbers about a sixth—and yet they furnish over half of all the paupers in almshouses throughout the country. This fact of itself certainly shows that an immigrar tion which supplies more than half the inmates of our almshouses might, to say the least, be sifted with great advantage.