By the census of 1880 New Orleans showed for three-quarters of a century of American rule a population of 216,000 people, of whom 175,000 are natives of the United States, and only 58,000 are colored people. New Orleans stood the tenth of American cities, with more than 36,000 houses, and more than 45,000 families. Although the manufactures of New Orleans were in their infancy they had an annual product of nineteen million dollars, and paid nearly four million dollars a year wages. Looking over the list of states to discover the origin of the people of New Orleans, the remarkable fact appears that of her 216,000 people more then 151,000 are natives of Louisiana. The neighboring state of Mississippi has not put thirty-eight hundred souls into New Orleans. Alabama, which is within two or three hours’ ride by cars, has not two thousand native children in New Orleans, but New York has over two thousand of her progeny settled in New Orleans, and Virginia has 4,300. Of the 41,000 foreign population, nearly 7,000 are natives of France, showing that there is a constant immigration, as in the days of Bienville, from old France to new France. Germany has contributed to New Orleans 14,000 emigrants. About the same number have come to New Orleans from Great Britain and Ireland. Spain has contributed about 800 of her natives, Italy about 2,000, Switzerland nearly 500, Mexico only 300, and the West Indies scarcely 400. These are suggestive figures, and show that since the great rebellion those elements go to the far South which have the most original emigrating spirit and the greater variety of self-sustaining trades and pursuits. A man who can do nothing, make nothing, improve nothing, has the least of all motives to emigrate. The debt of New Orleans was about seventeen million dollars at the last advices, considerably less than the debts of Baltimore and Washington, but some four millions more than the debt of Chicago. Railroads and other municipal improvements were responsible for a good deal of this debt.