The Daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1845-1850, 1845-11-05
A TALK WITH YOUNG MEN.

are to be found in the one we publish below taken
from the N. Y Tribune.
When mankind learn that the true glory of the
world is in its deeds of humanity and mercy, and
that the true end of life is to love God more than
mammon, to be industrious, prudent charitable.
temperate and holy, as CHRIST was holy, then
we shall hear and fear less of the social and moral
| evils, OF which there is now so much complaint
| Here is the article:
Wo opposite errors confuse and mslead the
mass OF mankind-that which usurps and pro-
lanes the name of Conservatism, insisting that
| while men are depraved and utterly selfish the
| institutions, laws, usages, and social condition
created by the unchecked operation of this de-
pravity and selhshness through ages, are per-
lection ITSELF or, at least, as nearly perfect as the
! corruption OF human nature will permit whatever
the progress and actual condition of the people
This is rather apt to be the idea of portly, thrifty
well-ted maturity, which says, Hang all your
reforms and retormers this world is a capital
world as it is, and needs none of your new fang
! led Improvements What do the grumblers
want' Is not the world alive with industry and
! Astounding in every thing essential to human
comforts Don't every body get work who is moi
too proud or too lazy to do it? Are not beef and
| bread always to be had for money? Is not turtle
| fat? Is not champagne delicious? What more
any body want than have"' Show one
OF these practical philosophers that thousands are
suffering from ignorance, destitute of employment
dence, or blaspheme Providence by contending
that these things inevitable.
Opposed to this is the of the grumbling
radical, who insists that men Especially poor
men) are all right and society or government is
the author of all the misery in existence-that
the rich all wolves and the poor all lambs las
| it the difference between them were other than
accidental land that every pauper, drunkard
lunatc or gallowsbrd, is the victim of false So
cial order, tyrannical government, or a grasp
ing moneyed aristocracy. This error is more
natural to the younger, the poorer, the less for
tuuate classes, and by them we would now be
heard.
It's a common and most ruinous presumption
that simple industry never leads to competence,
and that wealth is necessarily the product of
trade, and generally of fraud or crime The
young mechanic or artisan says, {" 0, it is no use
for me to try to save any thing out of my five 10
ten dollars week in the city or nv ten TO twen
ty dollars month beside board) in the country
as the may be-nobody ever got rich in that
way" Now it is quite true that colossal for
tune was never realized from the savings of SIM
pie and straight forward labor, and probably new
er will be. But it is great mistake to suppose
that competence may not (by most men) be re-
allied from naked, downright labor, or that men
are not constantly doing this. All around Boston.
Lowell, and almost every city, are the comforta-
BILE dwellings of mechanics who commenced
without dollar and never made good bar
gain in their lives, but have bought lot built
house, and now live independently therein on the
savings of ten to twenty years honest labor. Say,
il you please, that they ought to have received
and laid up still more in the Time and we shall
not contradict you we as strenuous as YOU
can be in asserting that labor can be and should
be secured fuller reward But do not cling to
the fatal mistake that industry is never prospered
! Look back the careers of nine-enths of the
! rich men among us, and you will find they com
menced life as poor men, and laid the foundations
of their fortunes by saving part Of the scanty pro-
ceeds of their daily toll. .4fferacard, thew were
enabled to accumulate property more rapidly by
the help of that they had acquired, but they be-
gan with little savings, and could never have
succeeded otherwise We not holding these
men up models for imitation we regard the
ambition to heap up riches as grovelling and des.
pcable. But few men can be truly independent
or greatly useful without some property, and no
man can innocenty take upon himself the respon-
sibilities of husband and father without striving
to provide for those who have right to expect
of him subsistence. The young man who saves
nothing out OF his weekly or monthly earnings
will rarely il ever save any thing; and he who
cannot lay uD something out of a moderate salary
will never obtain salary from which he cam
save any thing. Vain is the expectation of the
clerk or journeyman that he NAV spend all he
gets now, and begin to save after he has cot in.
to business if he does not save now. his chan
ces OF ever getting into business are precarious
and he will not be likely to stay in long if he gets
In.
The business season now closing has been
prosperous one to a majority of our people. In
this city, as elsewhere, the proportion of labor
ers out of work has been less than usual, and the
earnings and receipts of most classes have been
quite as good as they likely to be- Yet Of
our whole laboring population, what proportion
have saved any thing, even for the approaching
winter: We fear not one fourth. Besides the
large class who could not save any thing, since
their receipts were barely sufficient to support
existence, there are thousands who might have
saved considerably, yet have nothing. From
year to year, large portion of our young artisans,
clerks, &C., waste half their earnings in drink,
or gaming, or nothing worse, until at length they
marry, or meet with some misfortune, and find
their necessary expenses greatly increased, or
their earnings diminished Should they now
think of saving, it is often too late-a youth Of
prodigality has drawn after it an old age OF penu-
! ry and want. Thenceforward you will meet
these unfortunates in low groggeries or radical
cabals, mpotently cursng or madly plotting the
| ruin Of those who have been more fortunate in