New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-11-16
must bring to the feast such appetite as we
OFT OF WORK.

They may generally be CLASSIFIED as loiio"S'-
I. Those who know how to do nothing;
9. Those who can do something, but nothing
that any one wants to pay them for dong;
8. Those who are not willing to do what they
can do and might find to do, but VIII only
work at something lighter, more genteei' ana
better paid;
d. Those who insist on staying where there is
no work for them, instead of seeking it where
it might be found.
This last-named class is very large, very
miserable and quite undeserving OF sympathy
or pity If one were to go blubberlng about
that he had fished for pearls in Long Island
pond or dug for gold in the South Jersey sands
throughout the last six months, yet had not
realized one cent from the proceeds, people
would reasonably ask what right he had to
sGuander his time on such a hopeless folly:
vet day by day we hear this stOry-"l came
ito New-York in search of clerkship-haye
"boen looking for one isnatently these three
months-haye not yet found an 9Pen1IpS-
"have spent all my money and pawned my
"spare clothes-wOn't you lend me money to
"get away withf" What right has one who
acts thus madly to help or sympathy What
right had he to idle away genial months In
evidently hopeless quest of employment III an
overcrowded pursuit, when he might have
found work in o week il he had chosen to do
such as was needed, instead of persisting in a
vain quest of that which was mott
There is not man or woman too many in
the world, and not one more than might have
work if he or she would seek it Alright. Though
this is the dull season, yet there is still work
to be had. But few days since. planters were
in New Orleans, hiring stout laborers (White)
to work on sugar estates for S45 per month
and board. That is o high rate; but there are
tens of thousands of mere diggers now grading
new railroad tracks at 81 to So per day all
over our country. Men are wanted to cut tim
Der in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Min
nesota, and the South: chopping cordwood Is
Just beginning in the vicinity of most railroads;
ditching and draining were never more active
than now, and good deal of building or re-
pairing is in progress all over the country.
Here and there work stops and men are
discharged; as the premium on gold de-
clines, nearly everything else is sold cheaper,
and wages share the downward tendency; but
there is still work for those who can do and
will seek it Alright.
But here is the difficulty. Too many imi-
tate the drunken vagabond hired to dig pota-
toes, Who reproved for not doing so, managed
to hiccough out, eff you want your potatoes
"dug, Just fetch 'em on! / amt going to run
call over the lot after them" They squat
down in great cities till they overcrowd them,
and then grumble that work is so scarce and
rents 80 high-both their own fault. Here are
scores of servant girls applying to the Labor
Bureau for places but, when offered them
few miles in tho country, turning away
abruptly, and saying, Il won't leave the
City, Had they been born here, this would
not seem so irrational and infatuated.
We object to this crowding into cities that 1t
tends inevitably to the degradation OF labor.
The employer and the employed should stand
on footing Of perfect equality so far as obliga-
ton is concerned. A. wants BIS work; Is. wants
As money: they make bargain and exchange
commodities TO mutual advantage. III Ii. does
his work faithfully and well. he is under no
more obligation to A. than A. is under to him.
But if A. do nj want BIS work. but is impor-
tuned into hiring him in order to keep him out
of the alms-house, then the case is bravely
altered. B. is now crnging beggar eating
the bitter bread of dependence and virtual
charity. He has sunk from manhood's high
estate, and has dragged Labor q good way
after him. Every nottingham is injured and
degraded by him.
There are hundred thousand men in this
City to-day who ought to have long since
found their way to the Public Lands each
secured q quarter section thereof, and made of
it home evcrmore. Had they done this, they
would have aided to elevate Labor, instead OF
conspiring to drag it down.
But the slothful man says There is lion in
"the way ~ II costs money to reach the Public
Lands it costs years of patient, earnest labor
to make Of wild quarter section comforta-
BILE home. Tho poor pioneer must put up
very rough log cabin and be content with its
shelter for years he must live on coarse,
simple food, and wear coarse, patched clothing;
and he must work hard through nearly every
hour of light, Sundays excepted. He must
work out for tho means which pay for
breaking up his virgin prairie if he gets each
acre broken for week of his own faithful
labor, he must be thankful. The life of n
thrifty pioneer is by no means an easy one !;
and it will take him from ten to twenty years
to improve and fence his tract 80 as to secure
him the comforts of life. And yet there are
hundreds of thousands now living who have
reason bitterly to lament that they did not
attempt this ten to thirty years ago.
No man is obliged to be pioneer; but it is
every ones duty to find something to do and
then do il. And it is very dubious char
ity and worse economy to set men or women
to doing work that is not wanted rather than
feed them and start them along to some place
where their services arc really needed.
In Summer when almost every farmer wants
more help and pays good wages, and when trav-
.. L. Of al