Scotchman. He gave the Northwest a credit currency which was always redeemable on demand. The notes on Mitchell's bank were accepted anywhere without question, while the notes of other banks were frequently refused. Scotland has furnished more than her proportion of bankers, great merchants, financiers, and railroad builders to the Northwest.

An unexpected element is found in North Dakota, in the neighborhood of Pembina, where a colony of Icelanders has taken up its abode. The natural place for such people would be much further north, in a climate more like that from which they came. Their first effort toward settlement was made in such a climate, in the vicinity of Lake Winnipeg; but poor crops and disasters of one kind and another forced them to emigrate, and, about 1878, they came into the northeastern corner of North Dakota, where their presence is now indicated on the map by such names as Walhalla, Maida, and Hensel. This community has become thoroughly Americanized in every way, and has furnished some of the leading men of the northeastern section of North Dakota. They speak English fluently, but still keep up the use of the Icelandic language in their homes. They, like their relatives from Norway and Sweden, are prosperous and contented in their new homes.

In 1853, ten Belgian families wished to better their condition, and so came to America. After much discussion, eight of them decided upon Wisconsin as the State which best fulfilled their wishes. They proceeded to Green Bay and settled near the French Canadians, because they spoke French. These first settlers wrote home to their relatives and friends and told them pleasant things about the new homes in the New World. At this time Belgium had thousands of families in the same condition as those who had emigrated, willing, industrious, but unable to make a good living on the very limited amount of land at the disposal of each family. This was the beginning of a great emigration to America. Probably fifteen thousand came

to America in 1854 and 1855, and located in Brown, Kewaunee, and Door Counties, Wisconsin.

The Bohemians were some of the early arrivals in this country, some few families coming as a result of the Thirty Years' War; but the immigration was not of any considerable importance till the general migration from Europe to America, about the middle of the nineteenth century, when political oppression, low wages, overcrowded labor markets, and no hope of improvement, induced many of the people of Bohemia to turn their attention to the New World. It is probable that by the end of the nineteenth century there were half a million of Bohemians in the United States. A large proportion of these were in the West, Wisconsin having about fifty thousand. They engage in all kinds of occupation, many of them becoming farmers, and others settling in the cities, as the large Bohemian element in Chicago testifies. They have entered freely into professional life. Bohemian colonies are located in Wisconsin, in the counties of Manitowoc, Kewaunee, Oconto, La Crosse, Adams, and Marathon. The Bohemians are patriotic and intelligent, and when not out of contact with American life quickly become Americanized.

The largest Bohemian colony is in Chicago. These immigrants began to come to Chicago in 1851 and 1852, possibly even earlier than that. The main cause of their coming at that time was the failure of the Revolution of 1848. Many of these early immigrants were men of culture and education, but were obliged to engage in menial work in order to make a living. The immigration greatly increased after 1860. In the early period they were exclusively engaged in the building trades and manual labor, but since 1878, they have entered professional and mercantile life; the majority, however, remain artisans with a small proportion in the ranks of the common laborers.

The first Bohemians in Chicago settled in the district extending from Canal to Halstead, and from Ewing to Twelfth Street. After the fire, the Bohemian community,

which gradually became a good sized city in itself, spread from Halstead to Ashland Avenue and from Sixteenth Street to Twentieth Street, and even beyond these bounds. This section was called Pilsen, in honor of the city of that name in Bohemia, and formed in the heart of Chicago the third largest Bohemian city in the world.

More than half of these people are Roman Catholic, while the greater number of the remainder do not attend any church. One parish, that of St. Prokopius, has property, including school buildings, convent, church, and farms, worth more than $1,000,000. Bohemian patriotism was evidenced in 1860, when the first regiment to go from Chicago to fight for the Union was composed of BohemianSlavonians. In politics they were largely Republican till 1883, when the Democrats nominated a Bohemian for alderman, which had the effect of winning many of them to the Democratic party. They are more clannish than most of the foreigners settled in Chicago, partly because of the difficulty of learning the language, so totally unlike their own, which places them at a great disadvantage when compared with the Germans, and partly because of a prejudice against them on the part of Americans and of their traditional enemies, the Germans. They have taken some part in politics, but their inherited customs and modes of life cling closely to them.

Mention may be made of one Chicago colony whose members differ essentially from other immigrants in the Northwest. The Italians form a city of their own, but come only with the idea of getting money as fast as they can and returning to Italy to enjoy what they have hoarded. For this reason they enter but little into American life, and do not try to learn the language. Many, because of their inability to speak English, are compelled to become common laborers, whatever their work may have been in Italy. In Chicago they are mostly from the peasant class. They form an individual colony and make an independent community, with their own professional and business men, who

attend to all the transactions of the immigrants with the outside world. There are Italian doctors, priests, merchants and so forth. These immigrants economize in every possible way and save a large part of the dollar or dollar and a half a day earned at unskilled labor, so that they may quickly return to Italy and live a life of comparative ease on their own farms or in their stores. Some, after a time, decide to remain in this country and make up the permanent element in the Italian community. They are only slowly becoming Americanized, and the process will continue to be gradual till they follow the example of the northern Europeans and live in the country instead of the crowded city colony.

In the first half of the nineteenth century the productivity of the mines in Cornwall had decreased so that wages were low. Glowing accounts of the wealth of the lead mines in Wisconsin were sent to the miners in Cornwall, and as a result a great number emigrated to this country. Nearly all began mining for themselves on their own land. These Cornishmen, when they came to this country, were unlettered, shrewd, industrious, and skilful. They could take mines which had been abandoned and make them pay. They were not given to prospecting, but when they obtained possession of a mine they worked it as long as it was worth working. These miners began to arrive in small numbers in Wisconsin as early as 1830. There were probably seventyfive or one hundred in the southwestern part of the State by 1835, but from that date the influx was greater. Probably their number by 1850 was forty-five hundred in the lead mining section of the State. At the present time it is estimated that the entire Cornish population in the lead region is about ten thousand. Interesting survivals of this immigration are now found in the strange words still retained where the Cornish population is numerous. A number of Cornish words are still used and there is a marked Cornish accent. It is difficult for a stranger to understand a conversation between two Cornishmen.

The Russians are recent arrivals in the Northwest; driven from their old homes by oppression and persecution, they find in the vast level plains of North Dakota a reminder of their native land, and conditions under which they may continue their old occupation under happier auspices. Mercer County, North Dakota, may be taken as an illustration of this fact, for its population is very largely Russian. They are slow to accept American ideas and to learn the English language. But they make a living from lands which American farmers would not care to cultivate on account of their barrenness. They are frugal and thrifty. The birth rate is very high in these Russian families, and the children are learning American ideas in the schools which dot the northern plains. The Russian children quickly learn things American, and will not be long satisfied with the sod huts and adobe houses of their parents. There is a wide difference between the Russian peasant and the free American farmer, but this becomes markedly less with the first generation of Russians taught in American schools. These Russian settlements in North Dakota are the more worthy of notice in view of the fact that emigrants from Russia more than of those from any other country settle in the urban centres. In 1900, seventy-four and nine-tenths per cent of the entire number of Russian emigrants were in the large cities.

Polish immigration to the Northwest has been quite marked in recent years. With no country the Poles can call their own, because of the division of Poland between Russia, Austria, and Germany, the social, political, and economic advantages of America have appealed very strongly to them. More than two million are now in the United States, of whom over one million came from Europe, the other million having been born here. Within the limits of Chicago there are more than one hundred and fifty thousand Polanders, enough to populate a good-sized city. The first settlers came to Wisconsin in 1850. There are large numbers of them in Milwaukee, but they are naturally people of the country, and so are mainly engaged in farming,