It would be no act of tyranny or hardship to insist that every alien settling here should, within twelve months of his arrival, satisfy the local authority of his fitness to speak the language sufficiently well to enable him to understand others and be understood by them. At present it is no uncommon thing to find men who have been in the country for years and are yet unable to engage in the simplest conversation in English--or Scotch if you like. In one homicide case the accused had been in the district for sixteen years, could only speak a broken dialect, and required to have the simplest statements interpreted to him. In the city this condition of things is less marked, but as a general rule aliens--apart from the professionals--who are committed to prison do not speak the language intelligibly, even though they have been some time in the country, and that for the same reason--they get on all right without it. The Italians and others who are largely engaged in trading, pick up enough to enable them to understand and be understood; their occupation makes this a necessity; but even among them the interpreter is far too often required. People are generally given to save themselves trouble; and to learn a language is troublesome. If they can escape the necessity they will do so, and there is no need to blame them for it. But their ignorance is a trouble and a possible danger to us, and it does not seem to be unreasonable to ask that it should cease. There are other immigrant aliens who do speak the language and who are present in the large cities. These are the professional criminals who import their vices, and work their business, in a very systematic way. They are more remarkable for their knowledge of the law than for their ignorance of the language; and they are a very dangerous although not a very large element in the population. They have an organised system of correspondence and go from one part of the country to another, where they have connections. They employ skilled lawyers for their defence when they get into trouble, and within certain limits assist each other in the way of business. There are some of them capable of any atrocity, and they are all quite different from the ordinary criminal of the professional class familiar to us here. They have a certain amount of polish, and an aptitude for appreciating the standpoint of others sufficiently well to get on their blind side. As for moral sense as we understand it, it does not seem to exist in them.