The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-05-06
REAL ESTATE FOR woRKING-MEN.

A working mans aim should first be
the mastery of his trade. But while
doing this, a second end, scarcely less
important, may be steadily followed,
namely, the securing of a home. Every
man is better for owning a piece of
real estate, no matter how small. If
one has a roof of his own over his
head, and is his own landlord, besides
all the comfort oft, he has castle into
which he may retreat in days of trouble.
Most men, I suspect, intend to have
q home of their own. But the idea is
vague. It is a dream of the future
without any plan or purpose. When
they are rich, or when they are well of,
they intend to buy and adorn home.
Meantime, apprentices and journeymen
must have their frolics, and they cost
their little luxuries, mostly for the pail
ate, and these, too, draw largely on
their slender wages and year after year
well-paid journeymen find themselves
no better off at the end of the year than
at the beginning. Nothing has been
invested; nothing laid up. If they
draw small wages, they think it impos-
sible to live on so little and save any
thing. When the wages are larger they
acquire the hadit of spending all, and
when their wages are very large, every
thing goes each month to the last penny.
By and by, those who escape early death
through dissipation, find themselves
growing old, less capable of fatigue,
more beset with infirmities which age
brings, with gradual diminution of
earnings, but no change in their thrift
less habits of using money.
The ordinary American mechanic
earns enough money to place himself in
good house, owned in fee-simple, be-
fore he is thirty years old. But it all
turns on the point whether he is to deny
himself at the present time and take his
pay for it in the future. When q man
is young his sources of enjoyment are
ample. Less than at any other period
of his life does he need to employ mon
ey for the sake of happiness. While
young, he can live close, and be joyous
on smaller expenditure than ever after.
The old rule that every man should live
within his income and earnings, is very
we'll; but he ought to live good deal
within them. 1t is surprising to see
how little is required TO support man.
Some men live and thrive on what their
companions throw away. A young
man who has only his hands and good
character, has motive for rigid econO-
my. But men initiate each other. A
| journevman is ashamed to live closer
wants good clothes, good board, and a
little to spend for trihes. These things
have attractions for him, which the
prospect ola good house OF farm, twen-
| ty wears distant, does not so he lives
for the present, not for the future. He
| spends as fast as he earns, is always liza
bic, by sickness or accident, to become
poor, or to run into embarrassing
debts.
Instead of such a life, from hand to
mouth, without plan or method, sup
pose a young man is determined to save
a half or fourth of his wages, no matter
how small they may be, and live for the
present with an economy which shall
cOmport with the design; suppose, so
soon as little is collected, that q piece
of ground or a house is purchased, n
| small payment made, and the rest ar
ranged in easy quarterly installments,
how soon will he feel the exciting and
regulating effect of having before him
such a worthy object?
A man who is working to secure
a small piece of property, substitutes a
new ambition for remote and vague
one. Day dreams about large estates
and princely incomes may be very anus
ing, but they are not half so profitable
as the vision of a lot one hundred by
one hundred feet, with a snug little
dwelling house npOn it. With this be.
fore him, man will rise early and re.
tire late, turning his hand cheerfully to
any and every kind of work. He will
have a motive for rigorous economy
which will make it a pleasure. He viii
have the vision of the last payment be.
fore him as perpetual motive to mod
Grafton in passion, economy in expenses
abstinence from expensive pleasures and
from expensive companions. Thus, il
will come to pass, that judicious deb
incurred at the beginning of a journey.
mans or labOrer's career will become
his good genius, watching over him, in.
citing him to all industry and to self;
government.
Every laboring-man ought to own his
own home. The first duty of work.
man should be to convert his earnings
into real estate.-Neic England Red
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