The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-10-02
NUMBER l3.
City Clerking.

Boys, says the Kansas Farmer, don
be afraid of manly, honest, hard worl,
If well directed by Judgment and intel
ligence, it will bring its certain reward
We know there is temptation to Ieay
the farm for the glitter and style and an
parent ease of the city. Thousands O
young men, discontinued with the farm
work of their fathers, have an ideal cit,
life in their minds, where the young man
gayly trigged out with fashionaby-cu
clothes and jewelry, makes stunnin;
appearance and seems to be free from or
binary human cares. A recent lette
from Chicago to the Courier-Journa
gives picture of clerical life which ha
valuable hint in it to those who lon,
for such employment to enable them t.
escape the more laborious work of tn,
farm. A short extract is given to show
how thoroughly the individuality and the
manhood must be crushed out to give
place to the mechanical obsequiousnes
of the clerk:
at is estimated there are 10000 il
Chicago. The salaries of these animated
autOmatOns range from six to fifteen dol
lars, seldom as kigh as eighteen dollars
per week; and how under heaven they
make the legendary two ends meet Is
one of the mysteries. The salaries OF
those who gain their livelihood by their
shape rather than by brains and Drawn
have been cut down since the fire fully
| 100 per cent. There has been no reduc-
| ton in living expenses consequent upon
high rent, which has been very generally
maintained. These clerks are compelled
to lose their individuality completely,
and have become, in consequence of their
virtual slavery, veritable puppets. Sup
posing there was not the constant terror
of loss of situation-and there is, for an
advertisement in the Tribune for any
manner of clerk will bring from 500 to
1000 applicants, each able to bring the
very best of references'-and we may
say the clerk receives the munificent pit
lance of twelve dollars per week, which
is certainly the average salary.
To get board at as low price as six
dollars per week, and this will only pro-
cure the vilest of hash, he must live
from two to four miles from his place of
business. AS he must be behind his gOr-
geous confectionery is put in furnish
ings, not salaries, in Chicago-at 7.30
O'Clock promptly, it necessitates the eX-
penditure of sixty cents a week for car
fare. His lunch is not often included in
this dyspepsia-produeing clearinghouse
regime, and one dollar and fifty cents at
least must be expended during the week
for Observation-Disclosures. His washing will
cost one dollar more, for his linen must
be spotless, and his absolutely necessary
incidental expenses will swell his total to
ten dollars, leaving two dollars per week
with which to array himself in costly APP
parel, for he must be faultlessly dressed.
When it is true that more clerks receive
i .! 81,
fact that many have families to support
is considered, a picture of exquisite mis-
cry is furnished that should prompt some
artist to achieve renown by pOrtraying
these miseries and making the clerk their
embodied type.
"But these are not all his miseries
The foor-walker, or foreman has an eagle
eye for delinguents and the slightest de-
reelection is visited with singing repri-
mand, Kissed curse or that consumma-
ton of all horrors, dismissal; and so
fearful of this do these clerks become, and
so groveling are they obliged to be in con-
sequence, that / have stood by in disgust
and seen them chew prints in proof of
their fast color at the suggestion of la
dies(O. Manliness, sentiment, consider
alton are all evolved. Labor is valued
in these huge establishments at Just what
it will bring, and five hundred employees
are morally so much machinery. The
caprices of women with time on their
hands to kill; the petulance of women
who carry their shrewishness into their
inquiries for tape and tarletan; the whim-
sicalities of grandmothers and the viru
lence of spinsters; the torment of women
who want forty dozen sumples to send
to sick cousin in the country but who
are really making patchwork and quilts;
the thoughtlessness of girls who end a
raid on department with the remark;
Guess mall have to Gomez snickering
women, terrible women; handsome wo-
men, ugly women; holy women, thieving
women; and all the countless, contempti-
BILE little exhibitions of snobbishness on
the part of all women who mistake them
for evidences of womanhood and caste
all have to be overcome and smoOthed
away by the despairing clerk, or judg-
ment day comes"