Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-07-15
DON'T GO THERE.
No Chance for a Poor Man in Cali
fornia.

Letter in Wilmington Evening.l
| wish to state a few facts about
California, ana my aim in doing so
will have been served if you deem
them a good text from which to warn
your readers against all haphazard
emigration hitherward. Though spe-
officially referring to San Francisco,
the remark applies equally to all other
portions of the State, in which my OBJ
s~ervations have extended from Cres-
cent City to San Diego, and from the
metropolis of the Pacific to Truckee.
There are more people in the State
than can find employment, however
mental or poorly paid. The employ
meut Offices" of this city are always
crowded, and the stores in their vicin-
ity frequently obstrueted by the
swarmS of unemployed men. Most of
them have absolutely no means; they
have to be fed somehow, to sleep
somewhere, and they soon degenerate
into tramps. The country everywhere
teens with blanket laden pedestrians
in search of work, and tramps, with
out anything but the scanty clothing
upon their persons, on the same
quest. On any walk from my home to
the postotfice | am sure of being sew
oaal times accested by stout men,
neither drunkards nor presenting
the appearance of drink, who
are actually hungry, and vari-
GUS householders have assured
me that the calls upon them and their
neighbors by men in need of some
thing to eat are daily and constant.
When | tell you that some weeks
since a written announcement was
posted in one of these " Intelligence
Offices calling for 120 men to work
on the sugar plantations in the Sand
wich Islands, it may somewhat surprise
you to learn that the list was filled in.
two days, and that hundreds applied
who were either too late or had not
the sum necessary to pay the fee of.
the Agency" But your astonish-
ment will be still greater when | tell
you that these men had to enter a
written engagement, binding them
selves for three years that their pay
was to be Sl2 per month, they fur
nishing their own clothing; that the
price of passage ($25) was to be de-
Quoted from their pay, and that for
this muni6cent opening to enterprise
they had each to pay the agent
$3.50 cash. | saw all and ~conyersed
with some of these men, and the ac-
counts they gave of the condition of
those who needed employment
throughout the State, amply corrobo-
rated by my own observations, were
painful to hear, from the large num-
bers that they revealed as in a state of
absolute destitutian.
Ifan advertisement ever appeared in
the papers for "a man" it is almost
invariably for one that can lend his
employer 800 or 500. Merchants
and dealers universally assure me that
business of every kind never was, in
the history of California, so utterly
stagnant. Large numbers of ware
houses and eligibly located business
stands are unoccupied, very many
dwelling houses to let, and a German
acquaintance Ia ranchman and road
side tayern-keeper) has frequently
asserted to me that things now are
much worse in this State than he ever
saw them in the old country"
| neither say that these things are
the causes of Kearneyism (at present
rampant) nor that Kearneyism is their
cause. But the facts arc as give
them, and | esteem it a duty to tell
you the condition of affairs here, hop
ing you will warn the citizens of Viii
mington and the people of the PENN
sular that for a poor man there is here
no place at all, and that those who
have accumulated some means had
better look twice before they leap to
the conclusion of emigratiug to Cali
fornia.