But the South Italians remain nearly as aloof as did the Cantonese who built the Central Pacific Railway. Navvies who leave for Naples when the ground freezes, and return in April, who huddle in a "camp" or a box-car, or herd on some "Dago Flat," are not really _in_ America. In a memorial to the acting mayor of New York, the Italian-American Civic League speaks of the "great civically inert mass" of their countrymen in New York, and declares, "By far the largest part of the Italians of this city have lived a life of their own, almost entirely apart from the American environment." "In one street," writes Signor Pecorini, "will be found peasants from one Italian village; in the next street the place of origin is different, and distinct are manners, customs, and sympathies. Entire villages have been transplanted from Italy to one New York street, and with the others have come the doctor, the grocer, the priest, and the annual celebration of the local patron saint." Among the foreign-born, the Italians rank lowest in adhesion to trade-unions, lowest in ability to speak English, lowest in proportion naturalized after ten years' residence, lowest in proportion of children in school, and highest in proportion of children at work. Taking into account the innumerable "birds of passage" without family or future in this country, it would be safe to say that half, perhaps two-thirds, of our Italian immigrants are _under_ America, not _of_ it. Far from being borne along with our onward life, they drift round and round in a "Little Italy" eddy, or lie motionless in some industrial pocket or crevice at the bottom of the national current. LACK OF MENTAL ABILITY Steerage passengers from a Naples boat show a distressing frequency of low foreheads, open mouths, weak chins, poor features, skew faces, small or knobby crania, and backless heads. Such people lack the power to take rational care of themselves; hence their death-rate in New York is twice the general death-rate and thrice that of the Germans. No other immigrants from Europe, unless it be the Portuguese or the half-African Bravas of the Azores, show so low an earning power as the South Italians. In our cities the head of the household earns on an average $390 a year, as against $449 for the North Italian, $552 for the Bohemian, and $630 for the German. In silk-mill and wollen-mill, in iron-ore mining and the clothing trade, no other nationality has so many low-pay workers; nor does this industrial inferiority fade out in the least with the lapse of time. Their want of mechanical aptitude is often noticed. For example, in a New England mill manned solely by South Italians only one out of fifteen of the extra hands taken on during the "rush" season shows sufficient aptitude to be worth keeping. The operatives require closer supervision than Americans, and each is given only one thing to do, so as to put the least possible strain on his attention.