You would not be
in a more distinctively Italian section if you were by magic
transplanted to Naples or Genoa.
[Sidenote: A Foreign City]
[Sidenote: Other Foreign Cities]
Nor is it simply the East Side in lower New York that is so manifestly
foreign. Go where you will on Manhattan Island and you will see few
names on business signs that do not betray their foreign derivation. Two
out of every three persons you meet will be foreign. You will see the
Italian gangs cleaning the streets, the Irish will control the motor of
your trolley-car and collect your fares, the policeman will be Irish or
German, the waiters where you dine will be French or German, Italian or
English, the clerks in the vast majority of the shopping places will be
foreign, the people you meet will constantly remind you of the rarity of
the native American stock. You are ready to believe the statement that
there are in New York more persons of German descent than of native
descent, and more Germans than in any city of Germany except Berlin.
Here are nearly twice as many Irish as in Dublin, about as many Jews as
in Warsaw, and more Italians than in Naples or Venice. In government, in
sentiment, in practice, as in population (thirty-seven per cent.
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