There is no probability that even under the most enlightened arrangements (in older countries) a permanent stream of emigration could be kept up, sufficient to take off, as in America, all that portion of the annual increase (when proceeding at its greatest rapidity) which, being in excess of the progress made during the same short period in the arts of life, tends to render living more difficult for every averagely situated individual in the community. And, unless this can be done, emigration can not, even in an economical point of view, dispense with the necessity of checks to population. The influence of immigration to the United States from European countries, in lessening the tension in the relation between food and numbers, is one of the most marked events in this century. The United States has received about one fourth of its total population in 1880 from abroad since the foundation of the republic, as will be seen by this table: Total Immigration Into The United States. Periods. Numbers. From 250,000(143) 1789-1820 1820-1830 151,824 1831-1840 599,125 1841-1850 1,713,251 1851-1860 2,598,214 1861-1870 2,491,451 1871-1880 2,812,191 1881-1883 2,061,745 Total 12,677,801 Of this number, 5,333,991 came from the British Isles, of which 3,367,624 were Irish. There came 3,860,624 Germans, 593,021 Scandinavians, and 334,064 French. (See United States “Statistical Abstract,” 1878, 1880, 1883.) The causes operating on this movement of men—a movement unequaled in history—are undoubtedly economic. Like the migration of the early Teutonic races from the Baltic to Southern Europe, it is due to the pressure of numbers on subsistence. A still more interesting study is that of the causes which attempt to explain the direction of this stream after it has reached our shores. It is a definite fact that the old slave States have hitherto received practically none of this vast foreign immigration.(144) The actual distribution of the foreign born in the United States is to be seen in a most interesting way by aid of the colored map, Chart No. VIII, giving the different densities of foreign-born population in different parts of the Union. It seems almost certain that the general belief hitherto in the insecurity of life and property in the old slave States has worked against the material prosperity of that section. The different ages of the native- and foreign-born inhabitants of the United States may be seen from the accompanying diagrams(145) comparing the aggregate population of the United States with the foreign-born. This may profitably be compared with a similar diagram relating to the Chinese in the United States (Book II, Chap. III, § 3). Aggregate: 1870. The figures give the number of thousands of each sex.