EMIGRA'TION is the passing from one part of the world to another for the purpose of permanently settling in it. People going thus from one district of the same state to another—especially if it be a distant part, with different habits and physical peculiari ties—are sometimes said to emigrate, and in this way the term has been often applied to the English and Scotch settlers in Ireland. In its established signification, however, the word now refers to those who leave the state or dominions in which they have here tofore lived, and in this sense the term applies to those going to the colonies, though these are, like the United Kingdom, under the authority of the British crown. In the country which people leave, they are called emigrants or wanderers out—in that in which they settle, they are usually called immigrants. Jacob and his family were immi grants to Egypt, and their descendants became emigrants from that country when they went to inherit the promised land.
The Greeks were addicted to E., owing, it has been said, to the many political con tests which drove the weaker party from home. Greek emigrants planted colonies on the borders of the Mediterranean and the Black sea, carrying them as far northward as France, where they established the city of Marseilles. The Romans were great colo nizers, but by conquest rather than emigration. They disliked leaving Italy; and the military and civil officers necessary to rule a colony were generally the only Romans who abode in it. These even did not, in general, settle in the colonies with their fami lies, but were recalled after a certain period of service, the whole arrangement much resembling that for the government of British India.
The migrations of the northern tribes who overran the Roman empire, are well known in history; their wanderings may be said, indeed, to have continued down to the 13th century. Those who wandered from the north into France, where they acquired great territories, became known as Normans, and were remarkable for entirely throwing off the language and manners, and even all the traditions of their original homes, and becoming the most civilized and courtly portion of the French people. But though thus
changed, they still continued to wander, spreading over Britain, Sicily, and the inter vening portions of Europe.
The discovery of America opened a vast new field for E., which was taken imme diate advantage of by the Spanish and Portuguese, and later, by the British, the French, the Germans, and the Dutch. In the 17th c., many of the English Puritans, persecuted in, or discontented with, their own country, found it more congenial to their tastes to live together in a new country, where they would be free from the presence of those who did not sympathize with them, and they thus founded, the New England colonies. It is singular that, in the 19th c., an attempt should be Made to revive the plan of emi grating for the purpose of maintaining an exclusive church, as, for instance, in the English high church colony of Canterbury, and the Scotch free church colony of Otago.
The E. fields at the present day are the territory still called the United States of America, the British colonies in America, and the colonies in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. There is a great distinction to be taken between colonies fit for E. and those dependencies of the British crown held for other purposes. India, for instance, the greatest dependency of the crown, is totally unsuited for emigration The British people who go there, with the exception of a few merchants, go to form the civil and military staff which rules the country. They stay there no longer than they can help, and instead of living on from generation to generation, send home their chil dren in early youth, families of British origin having a tendency to degenerate, both physically and mentally, by long residence there. It is useless for working-people to go there, as every kind of work is done in some way or other by the natives much cheaper than it could be by Europeans, and the same may be said of every colony in the hot latitudes.