Norfolk day book. [volume] (Norfolk and Portsmouth Va.) 1868-1880, 1869-04-24
SATURDAY MORNING, April "A. 1869
MECHANICAL PURSUITS AND
WORKINGMEN OF THE
SOUTH.
N U Err -FOUR.

Ao VIC udfs oalu DolOI6 III uulOu
there is strength" and if you can unite
by any means you will find yourselves
capable of doing a great many good
things both for your own benefit and for
the benefit of the State-that is, provi-
ded you keep clear of /" sharpers." For
instance, many of you are disposed to
grumble with your landlords because
they charge you high rents. Well, pos
sibly you do not take the trouble to
think that the same law that governs
your demands for the price of your la
Dor, governs the landlord in his demands
for the price of his tenement. The law
of supply and demand governs all these
matters. If there is one situation open
and ten applicants for it, some of you,
possibly that are the most needy, will
offer to take it for less than the usual
price, rather than go hungry, on the
principle of half loaf being better
than no Bread" but if there are ten
situations open and but one applicant,
see if he amt very stiff in his price.
Human nature is human nature, and it
is the same in the working man as it is
in tie landlord or the capitalist, all the
world over.
But you about here have remedy
against the landlords extortions if you
have mind to combine to uso it. You
are living, many of you, with two or
three families in one house, so scarce arc
dwellings in the city as we understand.
Now, just about mile and a-half or
two miles from your workshop, you can
buy any quantity of land for a hundred
dollars an acre, and possibly for a good
deal less. This land is within half or
three-quarters of an hours walk of your
business; one acre of it will afford six
good building lots. each with an abund-
ance of room for dwelling house, good
yard, and garden large enough for all
the vegetables your family may need.
Our climate will enable any one to live
in bush houses in the summer time, and
In the winter, too, on a pinch. Many
OF you who have been campaigning can
tell something about that part of the
business. Now suppose you form your
family associations, say of three fami-
lies each to the acre, that will only be
1888 80 each for land enough for home
for each family. Then about the house.
to live in: suppose you haven't got
money enough to buy lumber to build
a shed with partitions in it suitable to
accommodate your three families, can't
you start your enterprise on the same
plan that some of your forefathers COM
menced, by building bush houses for
their accommodation in the summer I'M
I'll they could get means to improve
Now six or eight months residence in
a good bush house in the spring, sum-
mer and fall, would not be such a ter
rible thing as some people might ina
CINE after all. But this is only predica-
ted on the idea that you are poor as
poverty" and have never saved cent
for a rainy day. But suppose your
three families can raise the hundred
dollars to pay for the land, and some
thing to pay for say hundred dollars
worth of lumber with that you can
commence with better outfit than many
of the original settlers in a new country
commence life. You want stove large
enough to cook for the whole of you,
and, with a little industry, you have got
a home we'll enough suited for the sums
mer, and the savings Of your rent, COM
bined, before winter will enable you to
perfect wonders in the addition of COM
fort and improvements. Then in three
or four years each of your families can
have a separate homestead on that acre
of ground, that will be as comfortable
as you please.
Don't grumble any more with land
lords, when they are really doing you
good, if you only knew how to avail
yourselves of circumstances to improve
upon your condition. Now, suppose,
instead of three families only buying
one acre for this purpose, forty or fifty
of your families buy large tract and
colonize it in this way, near the city,
how much greater advantage this would
give you. Why, the advantage would
be SO great that in five or ten years the
spare lots that you would not need
would sell for enough to others
who would wish to locate with you, to
more than pay for all the cost of~the
land and the houses you may erect for
yourselves, unless you should put very