The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-12-13 00:00:00

THE ENGLISH LABOURER-FROM AN
AMERICAN POINT OF VIEW.

The English agricultural tabourer when be emigrates
to America must not take it for granted that he will
be regarded in that country from a purely sentimental
point of view. A c eremponcrent of tee New York
Tribune, an Obi farmer, after obeerving that the
Engewu agricultural laiterers, and he presumes Mr.
Arth himself, seem to think that only half the rule of
eupoly and demand in true—naxely, that it
their privilege ti sell their labour wherever thry
can get the highest price for it, but it is not
their employer's privilege to hire labourers wherever
he can get them cheapest, stares that he has
had of late some experience of English labourers,
and he finds the followng to be about the sum of
their ideas :—First, that their employer is their natural
enemy, and that atinequently it is their duty to do
as lime work or the wages they receive and do it as
badly as live in their power, so that they comply with
the letter of the law; eecon I, that they will ilemand
the highest wages paid to experienced American la-
urere, althot gh they can perform scarcely one farm-
ing operation acconling to the American standard. Set
triton tt furrowing oat or cultivating corn, and they
cannot drive • horse with "the tingle line;" set them
to, /duckling IWO, and they will make but little over
half hand.; Fitt them cutting cord-septic), and they will
barely earn their victual& An to seeti in; them at any job
requiring & little nimlianical Pk iil and iogerinity, such an
hewing timber, putting up board fence, or laying up
rough atone wall, you might as well set a big monkey
at it and expect it do•ie properly. Alt this dine they
think they are enti,led re the highest wa es and the
greatest privileges. Not long since," adds the writer,
, " I tent to an Eaglieh agent and obtaiued a :
Ip":ourer, psying his plumage to thin country, to
'be repaid out it his wager. The fellow was
not • full hand at any of my farm work, bnt
could have put up with that had he been diligent
and willing to learn. In the winter I required hi nto
light the tire in my Kitting room. He refuel to do it
one Sunday morning, on the ground that lighting fires
was not arm labourer's work— it Lelonged to the
kitchen gin to do it. lat once dbl.:barged him, looting
about twenty dollars (unworked-out passage money) by
the operation, but, like the map who passed if •
c muterfeit qearter between two copper cent*,
'I got shut of him at any rate.'" The writer
warns Mr. Arch teat if he expects to bring Eng-
iieh labourers to America to go to farming at once by
themselves they will certainly lore money in it. Eng-
li-h farming is not perfection in America. The
labourers must live long enough there to learn the
Ammicsn methods of farming before they can expect
to farm profiiably on their own account. In conclu-
sion, be says he has never had but two English imoon
tatting work for him who were worth hiring, o,ie
was a carpenter when in England and the oth, r a
butcher. He would have retained both in his service.
but after living with bun a year they found they could
do better at their own trade&

rATHOS AND PATHOS.— A Yankee gentleman
escorting a BritiM trieni a romid to view the
dderent o' jests of attraction in the vicinity Boston,
brought h.m to Bunker's Hilt They stood looking at
the splendid shalt, 'AP tt the Yankee raid. "This is
the place lel ere Watren fell." "Ab ?'' replied the
Tine oilman, evidently not posted up in loml historical
matters ; "did it hurt mm much ?" The native
looked at him with the expressions of fourteen fourth
of Jniy'a in hie count.: ante, "Hurt him I " said
he—" he wee killed, elm." 'At, be WA., -I,?"I said tie
icrauger' still ean yeing the Demulcent, d compwing
Its height in his o an mini, layer by layer ; "ell I
'Mould think he would have been to tall so far." The
Yankee looked down his nose slily at the Bdtisher,
and the Britieher winked round his nose at the Yankee.
They oaderetood each other ?