Smyrna times., 1867-02-20
Poor People In Large Cities.

There have been bread riots in different parts !
ot Europe; there is very general want and des |
ttItl0n throughout those extensive regions of
our Southern States which we're devastated by
the late Civil War there are need and suffer
ing nearly ev. rywhere; and all the destitution
that Is felt In any quarter of the civtized world
r acts upon this great City, whereinSfhe meet
ing surge9 OF European and American wants
are hurled aga ms each other. Every one who
cannot hnd position or career to his mind
elsewhere seems to fancy that there must be
room for him in New York; and so, with
population largely in excess of our needs, thou.
sands of strangers throng our piers and streets
each month, eagerly, hopefully, madly seeking
hre'SOmtthing TO Do. There should be a
general, cOnceited effort to warn others against
this suicidal resort but there are selfish inhu-
ences at work to countersct this TO our pris-
ons, our charitable institutions, our haunts of
crime and vice, Of pollution and shame, are
constantly crowded with recruits, who came to
n York in quest of honest bresd and, find
ing none were driven by what seemed TO them
necessity to take services in the armies of Sa-
tan. 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 ci her the royal road to wealth
or the means of earning an easy livelihood -
Some have suffered reverses of fortune and
plunge in o a city to escape sneering observa-
tlOn while they earn living by means which
they would consider beneath their standing
where they formerly fourished. Some want
20 see and be seen; many are bored by the
dullness OF their rural neighborhood, and want
20 live where they may partake Of the intellec-
tual or social life of the age we live in-may
see Ristori act, or hear Parepa sing or listen to
y sermon By Beecher or lecture by Agassiz.
A nd ya mot al ho iOhf
throng which is constantly overpeopling great
city, booming each other and their predeces-
sors to famine, and aggravsting for the thrifty
as well rs the needy, the miSeries and horrors
of a hard Winter like this
The saddeSt feature Of this grand mistake il
the accumulation Of helpless people in every
great people. Speaking generally, cite should
be resOrted to ohly BY the able, the skiilful,
the efficient. Ii GU know how to do the work
Of three or four average men, and are sure OF a
chance TO demonstrate II, you may get on in
city but, if you can do but one man s work.
the heavy cost Of living in city will soon Ge-
your you. A single person of average capacity
nay, Nhue in the flush OF youth ard h. a thiul
Wig n, get on here as q jUurneyman, laborer,
cook or chanlbernaid; but let such one marry
and have children and be or she is on the high
road 10 pauper's grave. Rents and food uil
be high here, at least while almost everybody
prefers 80 live in i city and the constant III
6ux Of youth ami energy tends 70 crowd out
ing, breaking surf, only strong or dextero1,
swimmers can reasonably hope to live; ye
here is just where the halt and the lame love
to congregate. Let any one evince chronic in
capacity to make his way in the country, anC
his relatives and friends are pretty certain t
ship him off to seek his fortune in city.
The legons of incapsbles thus pill, d upol
this emporium exceed all belief Their; ar
probably one hundred thousand people here to
day who, if they had been placed in the gar
den Of Eden when Adam was, would have 500
starved 10 death there for want of some one t
pluck the fruit and put it into their mouths =
That human being should get on withou
some other human being TO hire hln, and di
rect him, and pay him, is to these utterly il
conceivable.
1t is chronic faulty of he'll pless and incap;
bic persons to insist on doing either what the
cannot do tOlerably or what nobody wants I
pay them for doing MIR. Reg mad Granvll
Stiggs, for instance, having admired Shak
speare, Byron, and Tennyson, and being pres
ed 10 exeItion By hunger and thirst, sets up {
live a. a poet But, where the poet impul:
10 write is born of hunger, and thirst, you u;
bet high that the reading world does not, ar
will not, hunger nor thirst for his poetry.
ia not according to the laws of the univer
that man 8 need of shelter and warmth shOu
be &C essully grappled with by writing sore,
of verses instead OF chOpping cord OF WOOD
and the cases wherein this rule seems to
con,roverted, if thoroughly, fairly scrutiniz
and considered, really serve to affirm and {
tablish it.
Two thirds Of the misery to-day endured
earth results from defective or mistaken educ
tion. Our starving needle women were ger
rally starved into neede-wOrk had they be
seasonably and properly trained to It, tn
might live thereby aud not starve. There is
smaller percentage of suffering to-day amo
the unlettered labOrers living IN this City tn
among the graduates of European universlti'
We would not affirm that as many are edueat
out Of usefulness as into It; but there are
many who make very poor and useless lawye
doctors. or teachers, who might, if prope
trained, have proved quite respectable hOd-c
riers or wood -sawyers. They would thus ha
cost the world far less, and done it more goC
than as they are. Understand that we do l
object to special training for special caihngs.
It may be very we'll that Miss Slingsby shot
be fitted TO teach music for living: we O
protest against so educating her that she
only teach music-that, if nobody wants TO |
her for teaching music, she is bound TO steal
starve.
What shall the helpless do? What shall
done with them? What can be done for the
Difficult as it may seem to find answers
these questions, we are bound to face them
We propose them as subjects for meditati
not As themes for essays. Let US each rem
them all the help we fairly can, while we /
o.. best thou thought FSs to hS She Se ns sud
tnre generations are so trained and warned
the number Of the helpless shall grow fe
and fewer evermoreI