The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-08-08 00:00:00

"EMIGRATION to a FREE COUNTRY."

In connection with the subject of emigration, which s acing
resorted to by many who seem to think that by leaving "Old
England" far America they are mire to better their condition,
"A Bohemian' again writes to The Times .
Sir—The letter which you were is eased to insert on
the 2 Ith of July concerning my experience in the United
States and Canada has provoked many answers, and
has been commented upon by editors of provincial
spers and their correspondents, some of whom corrobo-
rate my statements, while others attempt to east ridicule
von them. My only desire was to picture things as
I found them and to "extenuate nothing or put down
aught in malice; but a corre-pondent of yours who
signs himself " Anglo-American" would lead persons
to believe that educated people have only to
persevere and succeed in 1\ ew York. He tells I
you that in possession of so many dollars he took
,
apartments in a first-class hotel, after giving the slip"
to a " cute " friend who had got hold of him, and that
afterwards, more by a " fluke " than by legitimate ap•
plication, he obtained a lucrative situation. I will not
for a moment doubt the veracity of your correspondent,
but the British public whose minds are now net upon
emigration demand a little more than this from one
whose eyes must necessarily be opened to what was
passing around him. Perhaps his bowels of compassion
were closed to the suffering humanity he saw around
him • he could swim while his fellow countrymen were
in this depths of poverty, and hung about the streets
of the city without a shelter for their heads and on the
verge of starvation. No person visiting New York can
be ignorant, after 24 hours' sojourn there, of the
miseries Englishmen out of employment have to endure;
men who have taken high degrees at College, willing
to work with their pen, are for the most part
treated as outcasts; men with commercial knowledge
can find no employment unless they are 'u' to Yankee
cuteness." Steady-going, honest persons, who wish to
work methodically, can have no place in New York
establishments. flaying thus noticed the men who
work by the head or the pen, let me now advert to the
skilled mechanic, who has left his native shores to find
better wages in New York. In nine cases out of ten
he is miserably disappointed; the decimal person
might, like your correspondent "Anglo-American,"
succeed—he may by a slice of luck get into the em-
ployment of some enterprising finn. which may
lead him on to fortune; but he is the exception
to the general rule. I have only to point to statistics
recently published to prove the correctness of this
statement. In December last 500 skilled mechanics
had a free passage granted to them from New York to
England by the Cunard, the Inman, the National,
'ad other - and the system, of returning the immi-

and other lines, ..... , syste..
grants to this country is now in general practice, DA will he continued.
every month's report of the several steamships can - -
testify. Men who get employment in the 'United 1
MEMORIAL STATUE to Dr. PRIESTLEY.
States IW mechanics, poisibly have nominally high
wages, but in most cases the "track system," so
despised in England, is there carried out to the fullest The centenary of the discovery of oxygen by Dr.
extent, the fact being, as I said in my former letter, Priestley was celebrated at Birthingham, on Saturday,
" money is scarce," and that which represents money by the unveiling a statue of the great chemist. Eighty.
is given at such a premium as to reduce the value of 1 three years ago, Joseph Priestley, then the minister of
-^incipal Unitarian Cr- ;ation in Birm;.—diam,