The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-06-17 00:00:00

citou*ibge Oscrber.

SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1871.

HEAD-WORK COMPETITION.

The Lou Timor draws attention to a few facts
which are of a very suggestive character. Our
legal contemporary is positively alarmed at the
influx into the profession of the law ; and this
not without reason. It seems that '2OO candi-
dates went up at the last preliminary examina-
tion for solicitors ; that 290 went in for their
intermediate, aid 190 for their final examina-
tion. Besides this, there were 77 calls to the
bar on the last occasion. " The increase in the
number of attorneys is, we are informed." con-
tinues this journal, "causing a fall in the value
of clerkships. As for the bar, we Can add little
to what we have said already. If men will rush
upon a career which is full of uncertainty and
risk, and which exhibits to a majority the cer-
tainty of failure, the matter is beyond control."
This influx into the legal profession is almost
enough to make the public shudder. The
thought of so many more laWyers added to the
large stock we already have is by no means plea-
sant. Lawyers, of course, die oil like other
people ; but it would seem that the supply is
more than kept up, and an adequate amount of
business to keep all these lawyers going is not
pleasant to contemplate. But to look at the
matter in a more sober, matter-of-fact style, it
may be asked what were these incipient lawyers
to do had they not fixed on the legal profession.
Is there any other profession that is not over-
stocked ?

A somewhat similar expression of alarm might
very well be expected to arise from the clerical
journals in reference to a number of ordinations.
The prizes in the Church are great; but they
are few compared to the number of aspirants
for them and there are fewer livings than there
are people ready to take them, while the great
majority of livings belie their name, as the offi-
cials of the various societies for the relief of
the clergy
_know full well. Looking at the
Church as a profession, it might be said of it,
as is said of the law, "if men will rush upon a
career which is full of uncertainty and risk, and
which exhibits to a majority the certainty of
failure, the matter is beyond control."
And is it very different with the medical pro-
fession? The number of successful physicians,
surgeons, and general practitioners must be
smaller than that of the unsuccessful; hundreds
and thousands trained to medicine or surgery
must be at this moment regretting they did not
choose some other career; and yet thousands
more are pressng into the ranks. Medical sin-
dents abound; the world is all before then,
where to choose, in one sense; but in whatevel
part of the field they propose to work, they find
there are already more labourers than labour.
And if we glance at other professions os semi-
professional occupations—that of architect, or
engineer, or author, or journalist, or toaeher—
the Cause cry comes from those engaged in that
department; there are already too many of us.
Look at the thankless and ill•remunerated pro-
fession of schoolmaster or governess, for exam.
plo. Schoolmasters, tutors, and ushers are
"plenty as blackberries,- and the field of em-
ployment is not large enough fur them; and yet
pupil-teachers are being trained all over the
country to make competition all the fiercer, and
still further to reduce the scanty remuneration
of the teacher. The position of our governes•
ses, as a body, is lamentable. Au advertise•
went in The limes for one of this unhappy class
will bring two or three hundred replies—many
of them from highly-educated women and girls
who are half-starving. This is a well-known
and a saddening fact. And the very same thing
may be said of clerks, a very large proportion
of whom are always out of employment; it is a
game of puss in the corner, with four corners
and five people to occupy them, and one must
be always "out." There is, indeed, in our highly
over-populated, energetic, and enter-
prising country, a frightful amount of compe-
tition in head-work ; and our attention is being
so constantly directed to our paupers, our me.
chanics, and uitizans out of euiployment, our
emigration societies and clubs, and the condi-
tion of our working classes generally, that we
are too apt to forget the condition ef the classes
who seek to obtain a livelihood by purely mental
labour. A variety of causes combine to produce
the fierce competition that exists among our
brain-workers, and some of these causes may
involve blame in this or that quarter; but we
arc not aware that blame can specially be affixed
in any direction. The increasing numbers of
professional aspirants is a natural result of a
high state of civilisation and of the vast spread
of education, and as education expands this
competition of the ',brain- workers will probably
increase. It seems a sorry look-out, but there
is no help for it. The tissue will come, however,
when countries which are now comparatively
new, and which at present require labourers and
, bandicraftsmen more than professional men, will
have need of the latter ; but meanwhile our own
professions, with ,:their numerous by-paths, ere
certainly overcrowded.