The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-10-01
Life ON the Farm and in the City.

Thousands of young men, discon-
tented with the farm work of their faith
ers, have an ideal city life in their
minds, where the young man, gaily trig
ged out with fashionably cut clothes anG
jewelry, makes a stunning appearance
and seems to be free from ordinary hui
man cares. A recent letter from Chica-
go gives picture of clerical life which
has valuable hint in it to those who
long for such employment, to enable
them to escape the more laborious work
of the 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 obsequi-
BUSINESS of the clerk:
''It is estimated there are 10000 in
Chicago. The salaries of tbese animated
automatons range from SO to $l5, seldom
as high as $1S 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 reduction in living expenses conse-
quent upon high rents, which have been
very generally maintained. These clerks
are compelled to lose their individuality
completely, and have become, in conse-
quence of their virtual slavery, veritable
puppets. Supposing there was not the
constant terror of loss of situation-and
there is, for an advertisement in the
Tribune for any manner of a clerk will
bring from 500 to 0applicants-eac
able to bring 8 the very best references,
and we may say the clerk receives the
munifcent pittance of $12 per week,
which is certainly the average salary
To get board at as low II price as SO per
week, and this will only procure the
vilest of hash, he must live from two TO
four miles from his place of business.
AS he must be behind his gorgeous
counter money is put i'll furnishings,
not salaries, in Chicago Mt 1880
o'clock promptly, it necessitates
the expenditure OF 60 cents week for
car fare His lunch is not often includ-
ed iii this dyspepsia-producing board
ing-house regime, and $1.50 at least
must be expended during the week for
restaurant dinners. His washing will
cost 81 more, for his linen must be spot
less, and his absolutely necessary Incl
dental expenses will swell this total to
80, leaving 50 per week with which to
array himself in costly apparal, for he
must be faultlessly dressed. When it is
tue that more clerks receive so than
$12 per week, and the fact that many
have families to support is consid
cred, picture of exquisite misery is fur
nished that should prompt some artist
to achieve renown by portraying these
miseries and making the clerk their en-
bodied type.
"But these are not all his miseries. The
floor walker or foreman has an eagle
eye for delinquents, and the slightest
dereliction is visited with II stinging rep
rimand, Kissed curse, or that consum-
nation of all horrors, dismissal; and, SO
fearful of this do these clerks become,
and so groveling are they obliged to be
in consequence, that have stood by i'll
disgust and seen them chew prints in
proof of their fast color ut the sugges-
ton of ladies.C0 Manliness, sentiment,
consideration, are all evolved. Labor is
valued III 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 in
to their inquiries for tape and tarletan;
the whimsicalities of grandmothers and
the virulence of spinsters; the torment
of women who want forty dozen samples
TO send to sick cousin in the country,
but who are really making patchwork
and quilts; the thoughtlessness of girls
who end raid on department with the
remark, Guess mall have to GOMEZ
snickering women, terrible women;
handsome women, ugly women; holy
women, thieving women; and all the
countless contemplate 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 bv the
despairing clerk, or Judgment day
comes"