" Many are addicted to drink and quarreling. It is noticeable
that the Protestants are morally and intellectually superior to the
Catholics. The bulk of the Magyars (eighty-six per cent.) are in the
Pennsylvania mining regions, in New York, New Jersey, and Ohio. At home
chiefly agriculturists, here they work mostly in mines, mills, and
factories. The Roman Catholic Hungarians are said to lapse easily from
the Church, going into indifferentism and nothingism. This gives opening
for Protestant mission work.
[Sidenote: The City Colony]
A writer who has made special investigations, in the line of social
settlement studies,[67] says that eighty per cent. of the Magyars
arriving in New York go at once to the farms and mines. The New York
colony numbers 50,000 to 60,000, including the Hungarian Jews, who are
scarcely distinguishable from the Gentiles. The life of their quarter is
one continuous whirl of excitement. Pleasure seems the chief end. The
cafe is their club room. Intensely social, fond of conviviality and
gaiety, bright, polished, graceful, the Magyar soon learns English, and
adapts himself to his new surroundings. The newspaper, literary society,
and charitable organization are the only institutions he cares to
support.
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