Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, June 1885Various
History
Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, June 1885
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
Vast as their powers of assimilation are, the United States, however,
do not absorb all the redundant population of Germany. Though no
longer imported and settled in large bodies by improving Empresses
as an example of thrift, the peasants still find their way across
the Russian frontier. The Czar now counts nearly three quarters of a
million subjects of German origin, chiefly of the Bauer class, and they
supply the best agricultural labor in his dominions. But, unlike their
brethren in the more congenial atmosphere of America, they refuse to
throw off their Deutschthum, and remain in unyielding opposition to
their unsympathetic environment
Among the steppes of New Russia, or along the flat banks of the
shallow Volga, the traveller will come upon more than one cluster
of villages with high-pitched roofs, bearing the familiar names of
Weimar, Strasburg, Mannheim, &c. which witness to the existence of a
secret Heimweh, _æternum sub pectore volnus_. Considerable agricultural
colonies have similarly grown up unnoticed in South America. In Rio
Grande do Sul and the adjacent provinces, German settlers have rendered
their territory the garden of Brazil; have given the landscape a new
character with their Lutheran churches, and are wealthy and numerous
enough to support five German newspapers.
Far away, also, under less clement skies, their perseverance has
reclaimed a prosperous domain amid the swamps of the Dobrudscha. The
Menonite settlement which lately passed under the Roumanian Government
numbers 100,000 souls. The beginnings of smaller settlements, again,
are noticeable in Syria and Thessaly, intent on bringing under
cultivation long-desolate tracts.
In England and in other populous countries the position of the German
settler is naturally different. The immigration into England began with
the political refugees of 1848, and developed its present character and
proportions much later. At this moment the German element in England is
probably under-estimated at 250,000. It is concentrated in the large
towns. The metropolis alone is credited with 100,000 German adults,
and its German population suffices to support four newspapers, while a
daily average importation of 12,500 journals keep it in touch with the
Fatherland. Manchester and Liverpool can boast another 30,000 between
them, engaged in commerce and finance. Indeed, according to a common
saying, half the members of the Stock Exchange are now Germans, and
this very exaggeration indicates the position they have acquired in the
world of Capel Court. The majority, however, are rather to be found in
the lower walks of commercial life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account