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European Immigration.

[From the New York Tribune.]

There is no subject which more affects the interest of the country at large, and the prices of farms and of breadstuffs, than that of European immigration—for every person brings some money; and always brings muscle; and it is not too much to say that a part of our prosperity is due to accessions from other countries. The number of immigrants that arrived last year was 449,046, and from the following countries: Great Britain, including Ireland, 157,905; Germany, 155,595; Sweden and Norway, 24,993; France, 12,781; Italy, 7,319; Austro-Hungary, 6,132, Switzerland, 4,041; Russia and Poland, 3,983; Denmark, 3,753; China, 1,964; British North America, mostly in transit 32,969. The total is an increase of 35 per cent over the year previous.

This year is to witness an equal increase, perhaps a greater one. Among that which is noticeable is the certain arrival of a part of 200,000 known as Mennonites from Eastern Prussia and South-Western Russia. They were formerly from Germany, and they settled in Russia about 100 years ago on the condition that they should never be subject to military duty; but now that the agreement is to be no longer observed, they are coming to America. They have peculiar religious views, being radical Baptist; they are opposed to capital punishment, are industrious, and are mainly farmers. Some of their class settled in Germantown, Penn., nearly 200 years ago. A committee has already arrived in Philadelphia to make locations for over 500 persons now on the way. They will probably go West, possibly to Kansas. They are all intelligent, and will form the best class we have yet received from Europe.

We are entering upon the most magnificent era of human history; the grandeur of Egypt; the glory of Greece; the splendor of Rome are about to be eclipsed. We are on the borders of the culminating period of this great material civilization, in which railroads, canals and telegraphs are spanning continents, perforating mountains, and tunneling rivers; in which unification is the theory of States, and in which physical strength and human ingenuity seem to be wresting with those of nature. We believe that the splendid achievements of the age are but the beginning of the gigantic system of roads, and wires, and canals now developing, whose heart is the steam engine, and whose voice is the printing press. But amid this splendid pageant we see no vestige of Republicanism.—[Shreveport Times.