No. 506.
Mr. Marsh to Mr. Fish.
Rome, October 10, 1873. (Received November 3.)
Sir: Referring to your instruction No. 395, dated 11th of August, 1873, requiring information respecting the number of American citizens resident or temporarily sojourning in Italy, and to Mr. Wurts’s dispatch on the same subject, No. 472, dated September 7, 1873, I regret to say that, though the legation has resorted to all the sources of inquiry readily accessible to us, we have failed to obtain as full and as exact details as we hoped and expected.
Returns have been received from all the consuls of the United States in Italy, except those at Genoa and Carrara, who have not yet replied to Mr. Wurts’s circular; but on several of the points suggested the records of the consulates contain but scanty information, and, as will be seen from the note of the Italian minister of foreign affairs, dated September 27, a copy and translation of which, marked 1, are hereto annexed, nothing is at present to be gathered from the returns of the last census or from any of the public offices of this kingdom. Your first inquiry is as to the number of Americans whose residence in Italy has been of long continuance, or seems to be indefinite in its intended duration.
On this point the consulates report as follows:
At Ancona, the American residents are none.
At Brindisi, none.
At Florence, about 60, whose residence is upward of ten years, and of half of these the residence may be considered as indefinite in intended duration.
At Leghorn, two families, consisting of ten persons.
At Messina, native-born, 1; naturalized Sicilians, 18, with residence dating from various periods since 1844. Their families are apparently not embraced in the enumeration.
[Page 1229]At Naples, 7, with their families, amounting in all to 16.
At Palermo, none.
At Rome, 110.
At Spezia, none.
At Venice, a family of 7, naturalized.
garded as above or below the annual average for a series of years.
II. Your second inquiry respects the number sojourning and temporarily abiding in the country, and asks whether such number is to be re-
The consuls report:
At Ancona, none.
At Brindisi, many Americans pass through the town, on their way to or from the East, but their stay does not exceed one week.
Note.—The steamers from Alexandria are weekly, and passengers often fail by a few hours to reach Brindisi in time, and are delayed until next trip.
At Florence, of winter residents about 200, the number having increased since the removal of the seat of government to Rome; of travelers spending one or two weeks in town, from October to Jane, an average per month of 300.
At Leghorn, in the summer, on the average about 20.
Note.—These I believe are chiefly persons residing in other Italian towns, and repairing to Leghorn for sea-bathing.
At Messina, none excepting passing travelers, who may remain two or three days only.
At Naples many temporary visitors, but number not stated. Residents of long duration, 21.
At Palermo, a family of three persons. Average annual number, about three or four families of twenty persons.
At Rome, students in American Catholic College, 30, and a few in the Propaganda. Number of temporary visitors not given, but supposed to be much smaller than formerly.
Note.—Upon personal inquiry of bankers and other well-informed persons, I learn that the probable average number of American travelers at Borne is from three to four thousand. It appears to have been somewhat greater for a year or two before the occupation of the city by the Italians, but the difference is not very sensible. The majority of American visitors to Borne remain from one to four weeks, and two or three hundred pass the whole season from November to April at the city.
At Spezia a few, number not stated, in summer.
Note.—These, with the exception of naval officers, are, I believe, chiefly persons residing in other Italian towns, and repairing to Spezia for sea-bathing, as at Leghorn.
At Venice 48, which is much below the ordinary average, on account of the prevalence of cholera.
III. The third query is, as to the number of children born in Italy of fathers claiming to be American citizens.
At Anconia are reported none.
At Brindisi, none.
At Florence, annually about 2.
At Leghorn, none.
At Messina, since 1818, 20, all apparently of naturalized parents who have returned to reside in their native country.
At Naples, last two years registered 2; number not registered is not given.
At Palermo, none.
[Page 1230]At Rome none registered, and no means of knowing actual number.
At Spezia, none.
At Venice in 1872, 1.
IV. The fourth inquiry refers to the number of Americans who may have been naturalized as Italians, or otherwise formally disavowed American citizenship.
No cases of this sort are reported by the consuls, but it is within my personal knowledge that in the year 1871, Guadagui Torelli, an Italian, naturalized as an American citizen and residing at Florence, formally renounced his American citizenship by a proceeding before a public judicature in conformity with the laws of Italy, and the consul at Messina reports a case of renunciation of American citizenship by a native of Messina whose naturalization was discovered to be fraudulent.
You inquire further whether any record or registration is made, or any notice filed, either at the legation or at the consulates of the United States in Italy, of the birth of children of fathers claiming to be American citizens.
It appears from the consular returns that at many of the consulates no records of the births of such children are kept. Since 1859 one such birth has been registered at the consulate in Florence; within the last twenty years four at that of Leghorn. A register is kept at Messina, and the number since 1848, as appears under III, is 20. None registered during the past year at Naples. At the consulate at Rome there is a book for the purpose of recording such births, but few parents cause the births of children to be registered. At Spezzia births of children of naval officers are registered. At the consulate at Venice a book for that purpose is kept.
I have no means for ascertaining the number of Italians and other foreigners naturalized in the United States and now residing in Italy, but though it is doubtless considerably smaller than during and soon after the rebellion, I think it must still amount to several hundred. These persons very frequently make no claim to American nationality, unless in cases of conscription, and in these, I have reason to believe, they often succeed in obtaining from the local authorities an exemption without an appeal to the national government. In fact, except in the cases where they return to their own native residence, and are recognized by old acquaintances, they are not usually called upon to discharge civil or military obligations, and, as many of them have no visible property and no very stable residence, they escape taxation. I have known one case, and heard of others, of Italians who had never been in the United States, but had resided many years in Italy as American citizens upon no other evidence of nationality than passports issued to them by the United States consul at Rome on the surrender of that city to the French army in the invasion of 1849.
In many cases where I have been applied to by naturalized Italians for recognition as American citizens, I have found that an interval of several years elapsed between the first application to the courts and the granting of the certificate, the intermediate time having been spent in other countries or in a wandering life in the United States, and in these cases the certificate has been granted only on the eve of their departure for Europe. In most cases of applications for release from the obligation of military service, the applicant has either been discharged for physical disability, or, more commonly, has escaped across the frontier, and we have thus far avoided a direct collision with the Italian government on this question.
The regulation of the Department requiring the renewal of passports [Page 1231] every year is totally disregarded by both naturalized and native American citizens, and passports are almost never asked, except for travel.
I have often strongly suspected that passports presented to me had been fraudulently obtained, but the only cases within my knowledge where positive proof of such fraud existed are those of a native of Alexandria, Egypt, residing in Italy, which was, I have understood, a subject of correspondence between the State Department and the consulate-general at Florence, but never came before the legation officially, and a recent instance at Messina, which, I suppose, has been reported to the Department by the consul at that place.
I have, &c.,