The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1876-08-27
DeStitution.


to live on scanty resources. Still, the instan
r. cea are not many in the South where act
: uai hunger without the means of appeasinI
1t Ia felt by any person capable of labor
Nearly the whole Southern population il
agricultural and there ia always som eth nf
to do In the country. Labor is there al
5 ways more or less in demand. We .doRb,
, II healthy laboring man could find a sin
gle county in all the Southern States where
he would not meet a n amber of opporton-
tiles to work for somebody else at a rea
sonable compensation. And, for one whose
ambition soars higher than to be a day
laborer, there are thousands of acres OF
good, open land every where awaiting his
cultivation of it on almost his own terms.
But because this is 30 with us, we must not
conclude that similar condition of things
exists at the North.
The following extract is taken from the
Chicago Inter Ocean,, a most rabid aud un-
scrupuious Radical paper which, 80 far from
over coloring popular evils under Radical
rule, would rather studiously avoid any
| admission calculated to reflect upon the
government which has been in control for
number of years. The passage is as fol-
lowe:
DESTITUTE MEN AND WOMEN.
II is generally admitted fact that there
never was time in he history of the United
States when a greater amount of misery no.
VERY, and wretchedness existed than at the
present moment. New York is full of want
Every third store you come TO in Broadway is
streets publicly setting forth their suffsrings
and calling for relief. In Boston things are
If anything, worse and a similar state of af.
falrs exists in all the larger cities of the
United States. One of the most unhappy pha-
ses OF this universal depression is the nnmber
OF educated and retiaed persons who are out of
empioyment-college graduates professional
men, clerks, and the like-men whose training
has not fitted them for physical labor and
whose feelings will not permit them to resort
to beggary or crime 1t is no uncommon thing
for employers in want of assistance to receive
from one up to five hundred answers from all |
sorts OF needy men. The Mayor of Boston re- |
Gently received perfect avalanche of appli- |
cations from Harvard graduates, broken. down
lawyers, doctcrs, and men of education, for a |
vacant place in the police force. Nor is this |
depressing state of affairs confined to the East |
In Chicago to day there are hundreds of we'll
Dorp, we'll Bred and well. informed men walk
ing the streets without q cent without the
knowledge of where to get dinner or a bed.
10" these poor unfortunates live is best
known TO themselves. An empty stomach shar-
pens the wits, and few cents to the initiated
go long way. Weary men tramp the streets
day after day seeking employment returning
at night FAINT and footsore, perhaps to tramp
again TIL morning or to lie down upon some
friendly bench or by the margin of the lake.
Week after week the same weary round goes
on, until the clothes of the once respectable
and welI-clad man are seedy and his general
appearance bickly and unpromsing Can we
wonder if the victim Of circumstances becomes
thief, or browns his sorrows in the cold, dark
"aters1 The general impression is that no
man can sink to the lowest depths of poverty
and despair except through HIS own folly idle
ness, or dissipation but such is not ALWAYS the /
case. At the prescott time nipe-tenIhs of the
Cases of destitc:ion existing Ia our midst have
arisen from circumstances over which the poor
outcast had no control. the ups and downs of
business, overcrowded professions, TIE failure
OF Others to meet obligations, the fail in the
value of real estate, family sorrows, anal other
causes. Only day or two ago a respectable
man presented himself before the police of this
city and said with tears/in his eyes that ne
was starving. He is not the only one who to-
day is Starving in the midst of plenty.
We cannot doubt the accuracy of this
real estate at the North. Frightful as it
has been here, we must consider it to have
been still worse in Northern cities, if the
accounts currently published are correct.
In Boston alone the loss on property for
last year is put down at fifty millions of
dollars, while in New York it is said that
real estate lie selling at about one fourth |
OF the prices it formerly commanded. This
loss IN values lie mere index of the gene
raj condition of business Labor has suf-
fered CO extensively with property. When |
property is worthless, mechanics and la
bOrers are not wanted for building and re- |
pairing. When property brings no rents
aud those mechanics and laborers who are |
connected with the building interests are
thrown out of employment, then there is
much less demand for the fabrics of manu-
facture and the factories shut up. Thus
immense multitudes are idle and starving.
1t is clear that strikes" and street pa
rades will not go to the bottom of this evil.
The men cannot get work for the simple
reason that the work is not there to be done. |
And though the Inter Ocean does not choose