Vermont daily transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1868-1870, 1868-08-25
Correspondence,
NEW YoRK. AUGUST 22d. 1868.

national sewer. This drains a part of
the moral filth OF about all CREATION.
We have difficulties resulting, such rs
few cities of the wide world have ever
had. Among the very salt of the earth
may be found goodly portion of the
natives of this same city of New Nolk
and yet we have the reputation OF being
about the most corrupt and most mis-
managed city of modern times. Unfor-
tunately there is too much truth in the
charges against us of corruption and
crime, although there is far more ofgood
here than outsiders usually give us cred
1T for. Things are intensified, compress
sed, condensed, aggregated here. There
are great aggregates of good, and great
aggregates of evil here. Both have an
intenser action than they may proper
| tionately have in sparsely settled dis
tricts. OF course the evil will be more
widely heraldcd than the good; but
this is not exceptional with us; it has
even been so all through human history;
and so sometimes our reputation seems
| fcarlully bad to those who look at us
through the haze of distance. We
should think it likely, for instance, that
from place as distant a. Chicago this
city must look very much like ancient
Sodom. Here the law of compensation
comes in in a striking way. There is n
kind of poetic justice about it. Now
Chicago herself has this same look to us.
You see Campbell's lines don't apply so
well to moral things as they do to noun
tains, for in the former, distance doesn't
always "lend enchantmenttOthc view"
Chicago has many wild wicked stories
told about her; these, of course, always
reach us whether the contradictions do
or not; and 50 through the distance the
look is bad and yet we don't doubt that
like New York she has large quantity
of the genuine salt. But this city of
New York, although she has much of
good, is as we have said, a sewer. Eve
ry civilized nation of the globe dumps Il
portion of its moral filth here. They
all send us good too, but then the evil is
so dreadfully troublesome. For instance,
it is reported that 200 English pickpocll-
cts landed III this city during the last
month. This many in one month :
Two hundred was simply England's
quota of pickpocllets for the month :
what did the other nations of the earth
do in this line? This is the pickpocket
branch alone; what did England and
The other nations, and other parts of our
own country do for us in other branches
of scoundralism? Is not all this most
disheartening for the poor who are la
boring for the publication ofNew York ?
But there are men here who work right
on mar eIId good time coming. '"Giing
magnitude of the work to be done none
can estimate. The cleansing of our CITY
government alone is an appalling task.
Among the large number of criminals,
VINO come to us from Europe are to be
found the most daring and expert. A
Yankee may hold his own in whiting
and building steam engines, but we do
not believe that he would have much of
a show in crime beside an English pick
pocket or burglar. The English crini-
nails probably give the police here az
much trouble as those of any other ma
ton.
turning 10 the class ofomigrants who
come here to seek honest cmploymeut.
we find that there is a growing improve
ment. The Commissioners of Emigra-
ton have just submitted very favora-
bic semi-monthly Report The appli-
cants for employment have numbered
1872; orders received fer laborers, .
~; actually employed 1859. The
male mechanical and agricultural la
borers employed numbered ,0S3 fe-
males, GO6. And then this happy thing
Is noted, that | ,405 were competent to
read, 2S4 only being unable to read. OF
the l2,95l emigrants furnished with en-
pioyment in the last six months, 9,425
could both read and write. This is most
encouraging, as compared with the sta
tistics of few years ago. Many good
men have feared for the stability of our
institutions, the purity of our laws, and
the maintenance of the general Well-be-
ing OF society because Of the mighty in
iluX OF foreigners upon our shores, but
these fears were well founded only so
TAR as they were connected with ignor-
ance and vice of a large portion of those
VINO came. The vicious do indeed tax
our energies and pockets, but we have
need of hundreds of thousands of intel
ligent and virtuous foreigners. And
so the marked and growing improve
ment in the character of the emigration
to these shores is full of encouragement
to the whole country.