descendants, but careful investigators have furnished us with estimates, which maybe fairly regarded as approximately correct. Some writers who gravely state that “the mortality among Catholics is greater than among Protestants,” and who complacently assert that “the vitality of the Irish is very low,” have, as might be expected from these expressions, glaringly underestimated the number in 1820 of the immigrants and their descendants who arrived here during the period under consideration. Dr. Chickering says that they then numbered 1,430,906 out of a total population of 9,638,131. But the Hon. F. Kapp, one of the commissioners of immigration for the state of New York, allowing a yearly increase of 1.38 per cent. for the descendants of the earlier immigrants, shows that at this rate the population—excluding slaves because their numbers have no bearing on the question—of 3,231,930 in 1790, would have only increased to 3,706,674 in 1800, to 4,251,143 in 1810, and to 4,875,600 in 1820, instead of amounting to 8,100,056, the total population including slaves being 9,638,131. Assuming his estimate to be nearly correct, his declaration that “immigration has enabled this country to anticipate its natural growth some forty years’” seems reasonable. A similar estimate was made by Louis Schade of Washington, D. C., and by Hon. M. W. Closkey, ex-postmaster of the United States house of representatives, who shows that the rate of increase of our population (1.38 per cent.) was greater than that of any European nation, and proceeds to estimate what the numbers of our people would have been at each census up to 1850 had immigration been prohibited when the constitution was adopted in 1789. The estimates just quoted together with the facts above stated seem to prove that the number of the immigrants arriving here between 1790 and 1820 were absurdly underestimated by most of those who wrote on the subject. The same remark applies to some extent to several writers who have dealt with the question of immigration after 1820, and even the official reports and statistics down to a comparatively recent period were admittedly defective in important respects, and failed to mention or enumerate a large proportion of the immigrants to this country. This subject will, however, be dealt with in another paper. THE FIRST IRISH IN ILLINOIS. BY HON. P. T. BARRY, CHICAGO, ILL.