The Bloomfield times. [volume] (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1867-187?, 1872-05-28
A WARNING TO YOUNG MEN.

N response to a letter from a man of
IL "twenty years experience in business"
of "unimpeachable character" and sound
health who, with his family, is reduced to
lowest straits, and probably hardly sees his
way to his daily bread the New, York
"Times" prints the following:
"The writer of this letter is, no doubt
as he himself says, type of large class
in this city. "They cannot dig, and to beg
they are ashamed" They have not mus
cular power for the branches of work al
ways calling for workers, and their own
field is crowded with competitors. 1t is
easy to tell them to go West but the West
does not want them. 1t has plenty of such
men. Every Western city is crowded with
people of precisely these capacities, who
are half starved The applications for
clerkships and small business positions are
as numerous in Chicago and st. Louis, in
proportion, as in New York. No one
wishing to be an accountant, or clerk or
petty tradesman should rush to Western
town, unless he has a capital. He may, in
deed, find place there, as he may here,
but the chances are thirty to one that he
will be left out IN the cold, and find him
self in few years in the condition of our
"impecunious' correspondent
"Thousands of men in this city, and in
all the cities of the country are settling
gradually down in this hopeless and useless
condition. They grow poorer every year;
their families often suffer more than those
of the avowed poor; their children sink
lower and lower in the social grade, and
they. themselves wander about in the worn
garments of better days, seeking employ
ment which does not come, until hope and
strength both break, and they die, if not
i'll an almshouse, at least in the wretched
gaITet of some tenement house. The sim
pie explanation is that all the lower mer-
camille positions are too much crowded al
ready. The competition is too intense, and
unless the new conner has influential ac-
quaintances or some profitable talent, he
has no chance in the rush for employment
Since the speculations during the war; there
has been thronging to the cities, of young
men who have abandoned the best pursuits
of the country-trades and farming-and
have sought for mercantile positions. The
market is over stocked with them, and each
unsuccessful one must suffer.
"Much as we pity the condition of such
as our correspondent, we rejoice that it is
/
being understood that all mercantile po-
sitions are not prizes. The healthful and
independent occupations in this country
are the trades and labor on farms. Iti ex-
traordinary, when we see the comfortable
fortunes made now by tobacco-raisers in
Connecticut by fruiterers in New Jersey,
by dairymen in New York, and general
farmers in the Central West, and the i'm
mense wages and independent positions of
carpenters, builders, plumbers, masons,
furniture-makers and the like, that any
young man should be willing to stand be-
hind the counter for twenty years, and ac-
cept such fate as our correspondents. No
reasonable parent now, unless he has busi-
ness of his own, or very influential friends,
should think for moment of a clerkship
for his son. Let him apprentice him to a
| good trade, or put him on Western farm
or in an Eastern garden, and then leave
him to his energies and the natural devel-
opment of all those lines of production.
The growth of population insures that
farming in the West shall be profitable, and
that farm lands must rise in value The
same cause makes many of the trades a
sure and permanent support. The most
independent person in this city is the skilled
mechanic. He has, too, the assistance of
the unions for time of need. No young
man of industry and good character could
fail of reasonable success either on Wes-
tern farm or in an Eastern trade
EB More novelties are the result of acci-
dent than is generally supposed. The
origin of blue-tinted paper came about by
a mere slip of the hand, William East an
English paper maker, once upon time set
his men to work, and went away on bust
ness. While the men were at dinner Mrs.
East accidentally let blue bag fall into
one of the yats of pulp Alarmed at the
occurrence she determined to say nothing
about ~ Graat ,yos A. o.4o,:.I..A q