Italians are grouped as to residence according to their village or Province, whether here temporarily or permanently. Thus in New York there are several streets inhabited not only by Sicilians alone, but by Sicilians of one district, and so on throughout all the sections of Italy. They are rigidly clannish in every way and go about in groups. If one wishes to do some shopping, all the relatives and connections and friends accompany him, to the great disgust of American shopkeepers, etc. Equally when it is a question of employment they are loth to separate, and not a few individuals but the whole clan must be employed together.

As soon as a few Italians from one locality settle in any spot, a bank, a pharmacy, and a few provision dealers will spring up, all ready to cater to their fellow-villagers. These, by degrees, bring over relatives and neighbors until a good-sized colony is formed, part of the great whole yet isolated and autonomous, and while not visibly so, rigidly apart and separate from those colonies composed of people from other parts of Italy. The fraternal societies and mutual-benefit organizations are equally local in character. How do these facts bear upon the labor [padrone] question?

The building companies and big contractors who require laborers employ a large number of agents gathered from among the different clans, that each may deal with his own; or they employ Americanized Italians and occasionally Americans who understand the habits and dialects of any particular section. These people are intrusted with the recruiting of men by the contractors, and are paid by either big awarded subcontracts or by a percentage, and more often by the privilege of boarding the laborers, backed by the contractor's guaranty, and he holds back the amount of the laborer's indebtedness. from his wages.

On account of these advantages these men are most active and persistent and use the most subtle persuasion to induce the laborers to accept their propositions, which are really those of the company which employs them.

When these agents or bosses are not successful, then they turn to certain bankers [padrones], who among other strange banking operations include that of contracting for laborers. They also enjoy, in different degree and manner, the harvest reaped by the agents, and considering their greater power and influence among the laborers of their particular clan, their fleecing of them is all the more condemnable.

These [padrone] bankers and agents use the most ingenuous means and will descend to any depths to direct the supply of laborers toward the point demanding them. They keep track of all great building operations and all other enterprises and of advertisements for large numbers of workingmen, and usually are so well posted as to anticipate the demand before it is generally known or advertised, and there is keen competition in the way of underbidding. All these agencies have secret agents constantly at work about the streets, saloons, lodging houses, and other meeting places and are always on the alert for desirable material. Their job is to recruit men and, if necessary, by force or stratagem to direct them to the [padrone] bank.

As has been said before, the southern Italians are naturally suspicious and it is very difficult to win them. They must needs consult

together at length before accepting any proposition. The [padrone] banker must be able to persuade, argue, and induce them in every way. He must have infinite patience to answer countless questions numberless times, to realize their point of view, to speak their language [there are a great number of languages or dialects spoken by Italians from the different sections of Italy], and to use diplomacy, cajolery, or violence, as the occasion requires. I have often seen one of these "bankers" physically and mentally exhausted and absolutely voiceless after having procured 100 or 200 laborers for a contractor; but it is worth his while. If his efforts fail and the men leave the bank undecided, he signals to his waiting "runners" to follow them and to use any means to bring them back to the bank, where the contract is finally made. As soon as the propositions are agreed to the fee is paid, each man paying the requisite sum as his name is registered. Often the employer pays this, holding it back on his first week's pay, but in this case the man's name is not registered unless he leaves his luggage or his tools as security. The time of departure quickly follows the registering, usually the next morning, and one of the bank's agents accompanies the men.

Thus the employer, their agents, the bosses, the boarding agents, and the bankers form a solid chain which hopelessly binds the laborer, besides the ties of family, friend, and compatriot, a chain most difficult for even a solidly organized labor bureau to break.

The padroni, or bosses, take advantage of the immigrants not so much by the fact that they exact a fee of from $2 to $5 for procuring work, as by advancing their traveling expenses and by the contract system of feeding and housing the laborers.

This illuminating picture of the workings of the system ends with the departure of the Italian laborer from the agency for the commissary labor camps. Other links of the chain that binds him may be added. He may not have a dollar in his pocket, but he need not concern himself about that, nor with the expenses of transportation. If he is to work for a railroad company, he is carried free on its line; if for other employers, his fare is advanced. He does not and need not seek an interview with his employer or the superintendents or foremen under whom he is to work to make his wants or his wishes known or to know something of the nature of his work. He is kept from personal contact with them and is led to believe (with a good deal of truth) that they are unapproachable so far as he is concerned. His friend, townsman, countryman, the Italian agent of the company and the commissary, is his virtual employer, his sole guide and confidant. Through the Italian commissary agent (whether padrone or independent) the American railroad company or contractor houses him apart from other men. In addition to adopting new and unusual methods for his employment, the American employer transports special food for him and provides stores for the commissary agent to sell to him, with facilities for the individual cooking

In deducting the cost of his living from his wages, care is now exercised that he is not overcharged or swindled.

Never in the history of immigration has the immigrant been so carefully tended and safeguarded from the evil that might befall him as is the Italian. His own Government, in article 32 of the Emigration Act of 1901, provides for the protection of emigrants by the institution of homes in the ports of Genoa, Naples, and Palermo before their departure for our shores. It places Government doctors on board ships to care for his health to port of destination. It fixes the price steamship companies may charge for his passage. It provides for rewarding local committees or benevolent institutions who shall put forth their best endeavors for him. It contributes by grants to the support of societies for the protection of Italian immigrants in the United States and for securing them employment. One of these societies states that "Italian immigrants are a very ignorant and timid kind of travelers." The society employs uniformed agents, who speak Italian, to look after the needs of the immigrants as they land at Ellis Island. It supplies an escort service, which safely conducted to their destination in and about New York City 49,000 Italian immigrants from October, 1902, to January, 1906. It operates an efficient employment agency. It maintains an information bureau. It manages labor camps for contractors who employ Italian workmen.. It wages unremitting war on all persons that endeavor to swindle Italian immigrants. It is engaged in breaking up the padrone system. It cooperates with the United States authorities and with the New York police department.

The State of New York stretches out a protecting hand to the Italian immigrants that the societies fail to reach and who fall into the hands of padrone agents. It enacted in 1904 and amended in 1906 a law which "specifically provides for the regulation of the Italian padrone system" and prevents the Italian from being swindled. Thus for the protection of this immigrant, "this very timid kind of traveler," a series of all-powerful agencies have been called into existence to render him some service at every turn; and when at last he begins work on American soil, he has by an excess perhaps of helpful attention, been rendered more helpless and timid than when he began his journey.

In view of the fact that at no point is he brought into contact with the Americanizing influences, one is inclined to think that he would have become a more self-reliant man and better fitted for and acquainted with the duties and meaning of American citizenship if he landed with a little of the pioneer spirit and secured employment alone and unaided, other than by the methods open to other immigrants, mingling with and taking his chances and opportunities with other men.

That was the way the "ignorant and timid" immigrants of other nations were assimilated. So long as the commissary system, good or bad, exists, just so long will the Italian remain a stranger in a strange land. The difficulty is not one, merely, of reforming the padrone system. Compelling honest dealing will not remedy the evil. The action of some railroads has brought about reforms, and there will continue to be at normal prices a big profit to the padrone in the sale of supplies to 4,000 or 5,000 men. The honest, independent labor camp where employment is furnished without cost is just as bad a thing for the purpose of American citizenship as the padrone camp, if the commissary system of segregation is in operation at both camps.

ECONOMIC CONDITION OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

BY I. M. RUBINOW.

INTRODUCTION.

The present study of the economic condition of the Jews in Russia is offered as a part of a series of studies on immigration and its relation to social and industrial questions in the United States. One of the most important elements in this problem is the distribution, both geographically and industrially, of immigrants arriving in this country. A study of immigration at the present time would not be complete without special attention to the Russian Jews, forming as they do one-eighth of the total number of immigrants now coming to our shores, and being found so frequently living and working under harmful sweat-shop conditions. Some of the well-known characteristics of these immigrants, such as their tendency to crowd into the great cities and to follow certain definite lines of work to the exclusion of the heavier manual trades and agriculture, will be much better understood after a study of the conditions and restrictions under which they have worked and lived before coming to this country.

JEWISH POPULATION.

As far back as authentic historic records go, Jews are known to have lived within the territory at present included in the limits of the Russian Empire, yet the Russian Empire as it now exists acquired the vast majority of its Jewish citizens at a comparatively recent date. Until 1772 the number of Jews in Russia proper was small, because until then the absolutely prohibitive policy of the Russian Government made any movement across the Polish-Russian frontier practically impossible. The gradual migration of the Jews eastward through Europe resulted in concentrating a large number in the Kingdom of Poland, in which country and in Lithuania Jews are known to have lived as early as the tenth century. The first partition of Poland, in 1792, gave to Russia the section known as White Russia and a part of Lithuania, with a large Jewish population; the second partition, in 1793, and the final partition, in 1795, added the ten Provinces which now constitute the so-called region of the Vistula. Since those events. the Russian Empire has remained the home of at least one-half of the