Litchfield enquirer., 1877-08-30
ReactIon.e

lVuS hmo. AuO VC6s 10 OoItoAuAy PAOoPOA
 ing. With enormous crops which con- mand fair if not high prices, that section of, the. country never had fairer pros poets. Reaction in the East must inevit- ably be slow. It is mainly Eastern cap ital that is sunk. by the hundred million,
 in railroads. and paralyzed in manufac
 lures. The savings of the prosperous years since '57 have been to large extent swept away. Not only the Eastern cap italist but the Eastern farmer. seems al. most ruined. For years he made sxtraor- dinary profits from the growth of cattle.
 from the sale of milk. and from tobacco.
 All these sources of income seem dried up. The money he made during the "years of plenty before '73 is invested in railroad bonds that can be bought in the market for less than half what they cost him. Men who, bought farms ten years since, and could pay but a part of the purchase money, see foreclosure staring them Tn the face The "fore-handed" far mer who felt like prince yesterday. feels like pauper to-day. . -,
 While, however, the native American is grooming in the agony of retrenchment, he can learn valuable lesson from the im- migrant. The thriving Yankee of to-day is not the Puritan descendant of Puritans,
 but the Irish Catholic barely twenty years from Connaught.. Buying one of those poor farms on which g native New Eng- lander would starve. he managed to pay for it before the hard times came. Now. with horde Of children who earn more than they consume. he lives as econom- ically as the Yankee of fifty years since, .and keeps, buying land. He is no longer the typical, free-h handed Irishman, but the closest buyer and the shrewdest seller in the country. The stories the old coun- try merchant used to tell of Yankee parsi- mony, the country merchant of our day re-
 peats of the Irish land owner. He will have his occasional ''drunk" and his occa- sional lawsuit, but otherwise his thrift is perfect
 It has seemed, hitherto, as if the native farmer really meant to turn over his occu. patton to the immigrant and to try his own fortune exclusively in the city and the manufacturing village. But he could never parry the sentence of. decay and death with which nature invariably pun ishes all classes of men who shirk manual labor. The city grows. not because its own population increases but upon the new life it constantly sucks out of the country. It offers few magnificent prizes; but. to most dependence, nnre- hitting toil. and seant success. Thus tho city is not producer but . consumer of men; and the race which fees from coun- I try to city fees to it's own eventual de- strnction. Man for man, city popula. tion produces more dollars. and fewer children than country population. Nor does 'that by anyl means express all the difference. In the country, wife and child rem work with the father. In the city they simply spend his earnipgs; and no class whose grown up children are con- sums-s and not producers, has ever yet been able to keep upiits numbers without large accessions from the working classes.
 One excellent result which we anticipate from theapresent depression is 8 healthy
 reaction from that morbid longing of the
 countrymah for city life, which has been
 the worst feature of our years of prosper ity. No foreigner can compete success. fully with the native New England farmer l for the possession of our own soil unless 1 the latter allows his children to grow np l in that qlhasi.aristocratic dread of manual labor which has over-stocked ali the pro. | fessions, and which has filled our cities and villages with more merchants than
 can earn an honest living. 5 II the specta. l cle ofiour starving city populations will l only teach the countrymsn the lesson oi
 contentment with his lot. it will be worth
 all it cDsts..d asdi haa ,say y.s 4soa,{cS De We see no objection to the working
 nlen,s forming 2 party. of their own.I We
 eAhpot bat remember what notorious re
 bels the railroad -companies have beer I thsmselves. When laws were passed they
 did not like. they have never hssitated to treaist their enforcement. They have cor.
 rupted stated ediicials, legislatures and iiadges, and the counterpoise of the work. iainGman's vote would. do no more than f eqaalize matters. and give the people a fair chance against menopolies which often havelittle regard for public rights or pub
 ifc interests oi zail ct J4oa yag bs. tatg
 As Col. Fairchild. of the 4th Regt was setting ont for the camp on Monday. he was so injured by the fall of his horse 1 that he will be disabled for the week. 4Asa Meuuhis haa oompromisad with lts