The Cecil Whig., 1872-01-06
THE CONCLUSION OF THE NATTER.
BY HORACE GREELEY.

nleaSuraDly Qld III all aSeS-a StroHB IdSCli-
alton over the minds of the young. Their
wealth, beauty, splendor, magnificance, are
all obvious; their want, anxiety, squalor,
suffering, are kept in the back ground.
The youth who is making his first visit to
New York, never thinks of devoting his
day or week to the novels of wretchedness,
the streets and alleys reeking with filth and
nauseous with rags and decrepitude: he
strolls up Broadway, and is delighted with
the magnitude of its single pane windows
of plate glass, displaying every conceiva-
BILE variety of sumptuous fabric in lavish
abundance. He passes into Fifth Avenue,
and walks for miles between rows of brown
stone dwellings, each fit for the habitation
of a prince; he gives his evening to thea
ter, and finds it filled with we'll dressed,
agreeable, prepossessing people, who seem
to live only to enjoy, while mimic kings
and queens, statesmen and generals, min
lister graciously to their entertainment and
his own. His fondest conception Of Heav-
en- scarcely surpasses all that he sees, and
feels; and he says to himself, Compared
with this, how dull, "plodding, petty,
hum-drum, is the life of my "rural pro-
genitors and neighbors Hence" forth,
the city shall be my home"
How his illusions vanish when he creeps
to his boarding house garret, already
crowded with such as he, and finds himself
entered upon daily round of earnest strug-
gle for bare subsistence, grudging the
loss of day as the sure precursor of some
loathed privation, and in constant appre-
hension that the loss of employment may
doom him to hunger and homelessness, l
will not here describe. Suffice it that
am confident that two-thirds if the entire
population of this vast hive constantly suf-
fer from the presence of absolute need, or
the reasonable apprehension that through
the failure of work, the bankruptcy of an
employer, or some other adverse stroke of
fortune, they will soon be reduced to that
necessity of borrowing, if they can, a
months board, or a quarters rent, which
is little short Of beggary. And, if they
cannot borrow, what then?
l would not induce every one to shun
the city. 1 entered this one minor and
an entire stranger, with few dollars and
very light bundle, but with good con-
stitution, a fair trade, and some capacities
which l hoped time would enable me to
employ to advantage. didsnot drink, nor
dance, nor game; could work as many
hours per day as any one; had no wild
owed mother or orphan sister depending
on me for bread: and was never out of
work longer than a week at time: so,
after ten years resolute struggle, wherein
l often meditated change of base, it was
decided that could stay here, and staid.
Though l. have at length rural home
wherein my few leisure hours are passed, 1
shall probably die as have mainly lived,
essentially worker in this great empor-
ium, now thrice as large as when l first
landed on one of its wharves.
Now. then, l feel qualified by forty
years experience to counsel others as to
the wisdom or unwisdom of migrating from
country to city.
Daniel Webster was probably the man of
greatest intellectual capacity our country
has known since Alexander Hamilton
Having made himself a lawyer, so far as
mere study could do, he settled in Ports
mouth, then a seaboard village of two or
three thousand people. After ten or twelve
years practice in that village, he left it for
Bosten then a township mot yet city of
some twenty thousand inhabitants-a little
larger than Newburgh or Pougkeepsie now
is. He had proved himself the best lawyer
in New England; he had served term or
two in Congress, where his unusal ability
for a young man had commanded attention
and respect; and he was widely known as
in the front rank of his profession. Doubt
less, Boston was his proper sphere, and his
migration thither every way judicious and
advisable. AS he once responded to a
young attorney, who asked him if there
were still room in the profession, les;
plenty of room higher up;' so he realized
that, though Boston was crowded with
lawyers, she still proffered scope and oppor-
tunity to one who was certain soon to
stand head and shoulders above them all.
Now Webster's are rare, but decided abil-
ity for this or that pursuit is not. He who
is better architect, painter, builder, mu-
sician, sculptor, tailor, or almost anything
else, than can be pitted against him, may
fairly look to some considerable city as like
vi to afford him larger opportunities and
better recompense than he can reasonably
expect to find in any petty village or rural
township.
Yet he should not renounce moral cer-
tainty of doing fairly where he is, in quest
of broader and higher career, until he
shall have felt his way, and obtained a rea-
sonable assurance of work and recompeuse
in his chosen home. A Webster without
reputation and without clients might fairly
hope to make his way in time; but how is
he to live until that time shall have arriv-
edo Who will lend him wherewithal to
uccG ucAG Als o IcuU, GIuSGlIlS lHdI
he may be rich enough to repay it in ten
years hence?
have known mechanic to plunge into
this city with wife and four or five chill
dren, while all his means were not ade-
quate to the support of that family for
bare fortnight. Yet he must rent rooms,
and buy some furniture. and 4 little food,
and then look about him for work. Sup
pose he is so very fortunate as to secure it
within week, he must wait at least an
other week-probably longer-for payday;
and how is he to subsist mea anwhile? Put
out of sight the chances of lack of work
and of sickness, and still hold this mans
adventures rash, unjustifable, all but in
ane. He has no moral right to stake his
wife and children ON throw of dice SO
heavily loaded against him.
Two classes may migrate to cities with
justifiable, reasonable expectations of sue
cess: l. Persons in their early prime who
have attained rare skill in some calling
which commercial reverses can scarcely
paralyze, and who can take along the means