New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-10-15

we'll introduced among the ,ayements anf
tramps who infest all cit .es, the advice i,
not very available. TO make this patt
more rugged, however, it is said:
To begin farming, even upon the smallss
scale, some capital is necessary, and who
will advance it Again, farming of every
description is business which, like every
other, requires q vast deal of practical
knowledge, born of experience. A man
city born and bred is almost as much a,
loss in field of cotton or corn as he would
be were some sudden chance of fate to place
trigate in mid-ocean.
In the words of young NARROW to Miss
Hardcastle, "My meaning, madam, but
infinitely better expressed" The imam
city born and bred" is told
If you can Rot go to the country as a
farmer, go there as a field hand. Begin
there your fortunes and work from the
ground up, as Adam did.
The problem is how shall society sup
port itself? Agriculture is a pursuit
which requires strength and health. It
would not be wise to take the man from
the head of his family here and send him
into the country. Still less wise would it
be to send with him a dependent family
to be supported upon his labor or upon
neighborhood aims. There are other en-
Payments better adapted to people city
born and bred. The commerce of the
sea, the rivers and the railroads elsewhere
employ thousands. The mechanic arts,
conducted by machinery or by hard work,
enable society to assign employment and
pay wages to a percentage Of its people,
The wages of woman in shoe shop, a
telegraph Office or cotton mill, will
maintain herself and couple of small
children. The REPUBLICAN has shown
that the mechanical workers in New Or
leans bear smaller proportion to the
gross population than most other cities in
the Union.
Agriculture will absorb all that are fit
for it. Two out of five persons are fit for
field workers. Can We not furnish en-
ployment for at least one or half a one out
Of the other three? Suppose for our
country villages there should be factories
for canned fruits and vegetables. In one
such factory in New Orleons there was
the affecting spectacle of nineteen or
twenty women, widows with families, EN-.
ployed in potting shrimps. The culture
Of the silk worm, either for the eggs, the
,ocoons, the flature or the weaving of
silk, may be introduced. A statesman
will find work for every one according to
he measure of his or her ability.
sAhe great industrial question for New |
Orleans is, can we spin our own cotton /? |
We have an abundance of unemployed |
abor Of white and colored. 1t could |
ubsist on the average wages of the Fall
River operatives, seven and half dol
ars a week for six working days. Why
hould there not be public meeting, and
committee to inquire into the solution
# this question, with others of like ma
ure? A demonstrated employment for
twenty-five per cent of our unemployed
would, with our present resources, sup
ort our population.
We have stated the causes of our COM
aercial depression. They may be all
ombined in the want of employment of
ur people. We have suggested that, in
edition to the present occupations of our
eople in the towns and country, we
hould add the machine and handicraft
which exist elsewhere.
If the press and people take up this
uestion it can at least be decided whether
Iew Orleans possesses such resource, or
neither, when depopulated by the en-
freed idleness of her inhabitants, she
nall, with Alexandria and Tadmor, with
aples, Bristol and other modern cities,
rumble into insignifcance and perish
it'll morbid decay.