New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-05-12
SOMETHING TO Do

in progress on every side, and the far
mer must redouble his activity to re-
cover the time lost by the late SHOWS and
cold, wet grounds of our wintry March
and chilly, pelting April. But the mechan-
ic also finds opportunity and Indictment
in these warm, bright days-for building,
fencing, painting, &C., &C., are going for
ward on every side. Never was work more
abundant, out of the pale of cities, than a:
this very time.
And yet we receive applications from
the Country, by letter and personally, ask
ing us to find work in this crowded Babel
and its suburbs, where One Million People
are struggling for the work which would
comfortably support half of them, asking
us if we can't find or make something to
do for this or that applicant. To answer
these solicitations in detail, we have neither
time nor inclination. Be it understood
once for all, as general answer to all such
applications, past, present and future, that
there are more people in our City than can
find employment and subsistence here, and
that, if we knew how to give situations to
hundred persons, we could and should fill
every one of them with persons who are in
habitants of our City. These are our
neighbors; they must have work or come
to want we do not realize like necessi-
ty nor a like obligation with regard to
those at a distance, who live where the
earth invites and rewards labor, and where
there are but hundreds on an area which
here must give subsistence to hundreds OF
thousands. 1t is an utter waste of time
and effort, therefore, to write us or visit us
from distance in the hope Of finding en-
ployment in the City. We could not oftea
find it if we would, and would not if we
could.
There seems something akin to madness
in the prevalent desire to rush into the City.
That idlers and genteel loafers, who don't
know how to really work and wouldn't do
it if they knew, should head toward the
City, each confident, like Micawber, that
something must turn up if they can only
quarter themselves in New York, is per-
haps not surprising; but we have known
sober, intelligent and tolerably industrious
men anxious to bring each his wife and
children from the Country to the City, here
to pay city rent and buy food, clothing
and fuel from the salary of clerk or the
weekly earnings of mechanic! Men who
have been accustomed to the luxury of
whole house, however humble, will come
here and stow wife and three children in
to two rooms and closet in the third or
fourth story, and there calculate from day
to day whether they can afford to have a
real dinner, if thereby they may be ena-
bled to live in a city. Of course, they can
do this if they will, but it is idle to ask us
to help them after we have SO often told
them we won't.
But ought nobody to come to the CityF
We are asked.-Yes, certainly; there are
classes who may properly come; but they
are not those who solicit places. Men of
remarkable power, Clergymen, Physi-
clans, Teachers, Lecturers, &c.-may
come here; but they need not seek places;
such men will in due season be sought
Mechanics of the better class-Smiths,
Shipwrights, Printers, Masons, Carpenters,
Painters, &c.-may often find employment
here, and, being virtuous, frugal and with
out families, may do well. But let no man
of this sort come to a city until he shall
have FIRST earned money enough to bring
him, support him as long as he means to
stay without work, and take him home
again; then let him come, look about him,
and, finding work, do it, or, not finding it,
make his way home again, satisfied that he
has seen the elephant and settle quietly
down to his old bench or seat. If he finds
work here, let him improve it to the utmost,
and when it falls off let him be ready and
willing to show the City his heels on the
very shortest notice. And each should
firmly resolve, if he ioill stay in city, TO
have some property accumulated, or some
thing over journeyman's wages or clerks
salary to depend upon, before he under
takes the responsibility of providing for
family.
The general rule with regard to City and
Country is this-H, through strength of in
tellect, peculiar faculty or strength of pur-
pose, you are able and willing to do seve-
raj fair average mems work each day, then