he objects of judicial
pursuit are composed of orphans; the half have no father, a quarter no
mother, and as for those who have a family, nearly all are dragged by it
into evil."

EMIGRATION.

There is no question that the breaking of the ties with one's country
has a bad moral effect, especially on a laboring class. The Emigrant is
released from the social inspection and judgment to which he has been
subjected at home, and the tie of church and priesthood is weakened. If
a Roman Catholic, he is often a worse Catholic, without being a better
Protestant. If a Protestant, he often becomes indifferent. Moral ties
are loosened with the religious. The intervening process which occurs
here, between his abandoning the old state of things and fitting himself
to the new, is not favorable to morals or character.

The consequence is, that an immense proportion of our ignorant and
criminal class are foreign-born; and of the dangerous classes here, a
very large part, though native-born, are of foreign parentage. Thus, out
of the whole number of foreigners in New York State, in 1860, 16.69 per
cent. could not read or write; while of the native-born only 1.83 per
cent. were illiterate.

Of the 49,423 prisoners in our city prisons, in prison for one year
before January, 1870, 32,225 were of foreign birth, and, no doubt, a
large proportion of the remainder of foreign parentage. Of the
foreign-born, 21,887 were from Ireland; and yet at home the Irish are
one of the most law-abiding and virtuous of populations--the proportion
of criminals being smaller than in England or Scotland.

In the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, according to Dr. Bittinger,
from one-fourth to one-third of the inmates are foreigners; in Auburn,
from a third to a half; in Clinton, one-half; in Sing Sing, between
one-half and six-sevenths. In the Albany Penitentiary, the aggregate
number of prisoners during the last twenty years was 18,390, of whom
10,770 were foreign-born. [Transact. of Nat. Cong., p. 282.]

It is another marked instance of the demoralizing influence of
emigration, that so large a proportion of the female criminal class
should be Irish-born, though the Irish female laboring class are well
known to be at home one of the most virtuous in the world.

A hopeful fact, however, begins to appear in regard to this matter; the
worst effects of emigration in this country seem over. The machinery for
protecting and fo