New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-02-13
should at once give the subject the most thorough
consideration
HELPLESS PEOPLE.

travel and transportation, and paralyzlng the
pursui.s or callings whereby many thousands
were irving to subsist. There have been bread
riots lin different parts of Europe; there IS
very general want and restitution throughout
those extensive regions of our Southern States
which were devastated by the late ClVll
War; there are need and suffering
nearly everywhere; and all the des-
titutio1 that is felt in any quarter OF the
civilized world reacts upon this great City,
wherein the meeting surges OF European and
American want are hurled against each other.
Every one who cannot find position or career
IN his mind elsewhere seems to fancy that
there must be room for him in New York; and
30, with population largely in excess OF our
needs. thousands of strangers thrOng our piers
and streets each month"; eagerly, hopefully,
madly seeking here Something to Do. There
should be general, concerted effort to warn
others Against his ssiGida resort but there are
selfish influences at work to cOunteracC tnls
80 our prisons, our charitable institutions our
haunts of crime and vice. OF pollution ana
shame are constantly crowded with recruits,
who came to New-YOrk in quest OF honest
bread. and, finding none, were driven by what
seemed to them necessity to take service in the
armies of Satan. There is no day, no hour
which does not witness the entry of many souls
on the road to ruin who might have been saved
by timely warning against the fatal tendency
TO seek in some great city either royal road
To wealth or the means of earning an easy
livelihood Some have suffered reverses OF
fortune, ard plunge into a city to escape sheer
ing observation while they earn liv-
ing by means which they would con-
slider beneath their standingiwhere they form
erly flourshed. Some want to see and be
seen many are bored by the dulIness of their
rural neighborhood, and want to live where
they may partake of the intellectual or social
life of the age we live in-may see Ristori act,
or hear Parepa sing or listen to sermon by
Beecher or a lecture by Agassiz. thousand
various motives impel the mighty throng which
is constantly OverIeopling great city, booming
each other and their predecessors to famine,
and aggravating, for the thrifty as well as the
needy the miseries and horrors of hard Winter
like this.
The saddest feature OF this grand mistake is
the accumulation of helpless people in every
great city. Speaking generally, cities should
be resorted to only by the able, the skillful,
the efficient If you know how to do the work
of three or -four average men, and are sure OF
a chance TO demonstrate it, You may get on In
n city /; but, if you can do but one mans work,
the heavy cost of living in city will soon
devour You. A single person of average capacity
may, wlilc in the flush of youth and healthful
vigor get on here ~ journeyman, laborer, cook
on chambermaid; but let such a one marry
4 Id L.. 81 i iho oh
road to a paupers grave. Rents and food tciH
be high here, at least while almost everybody
prefers TO live in n city; and the constant in
flux Of youth and energy tends to crowd out
the burdcncd and the tagging. In this boil
ing. breaking surf, only strong or dexterous
swimmers can reasonably hope 10 live; yet
here Is just where the halt aud the lame love to
congtcgatc. Let any one eyince chronic inca
pacity TO make his way in the country, and his
relative, and friends are pretty certain to ship
him off to seek his fortune in a city.
The hgions Of incapables thus piled upon
this emporium exceed all belief. There are
probably one hundred thousand people here to-
dry who, il they had been placed in the garden
/ of Eden when Adam was, would have soon
! starved todeath there for want of some one to
! pluck the fruit and put 1t into their mouths.
That a human being should get on without
some other human being to hire him, and
direct him, and pay him, is TO these utterly
nconceivabl.
1t is a chronic faulty of helpless and inca
pable persons to insist on doing either what
they cannot 60 tolerably or what nobody wants
TO pay them br doing Mr.. Reginald Granville
| Stiggs, for mltancc, having read and admired
- /. 4 r. hntV,
pressed TO eXation by hunger and thirst, sets
up To live as poet. But, where the poets inn
pulse 10 write is born of hunger and thirst,
You may bet ligh that the reading world does
not and will not hunger nor thirst for his
poetry II is not according to the laws of the
universe that n mans need of shelter and
warmth should he successfully grappled with
by writing a Screed of verses instead of chop
ping cord of wood; and the cases wherein
this rule seems TO be contrOvcrted, if thor
oughly, fairly scrutnzed and considered, really
serve TO affirm and establish it.
Two-thiTds of the misery to-day endured on
earth results from defective or mistaken educa
ton. Our starving necdlcwOmen were gene
rally starved into necdleworl, had they been
scasonably and properly trained to 1t, they
might live thereby and not starye. There is n
smaller percentage of suffering to-day among
the unlettercd laborers living in this City than
among the graduates of European universities.
We would not affirm that rs many are educated
out of usefulness as into il; but there are too
many who make very poor aud useless lawyers,
doctors, or teachers, who might, if properly
trained, have proved quite respectable hod-
carriers or WOOD -saWyGIs. They would thus
have cost the world far less, and done it more
good than as they are. Understand that we