The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1883-04-10
'GENTEEL" EMPLOYMENT.
The Mistake Made by Young
People Of Both Sexes.

Lond Telegraph.
We have already given publicity to
The fact that a gentleman who, a few
DAYS since, advertised in our columns
for clerk and bookkeeper, at sal
ary of e3 per week, and who requested
that replies to this advertisement
should be addressed to the postal de-
partment of this journal. received in
response 1880 applications for the sit
uation in question.
To judge from the eagerness of the
legion of candidates who rushed al
clerksbip. f3 week must have SEEM
ed a very Eden, peeuniorily speaking,
to hundreds of genteely brought up
but poverty stricken young men. Let US
look little at what f3 a week means.
They mean the wages of working
engineer, of q cabinet-maker, of
compositor. of saddler. of a farrier.
and Of many other branches of man.
ual or mechanical Industry. Many
artisans in these trades may be able
to earn more than f3 q week; car
vers. modeiers, ivory turner's. watch
makers, opticians, coachmakers, dec
orators can realize mu:h more money
in the course of a year than the aver
age clerk; and they are able to main
tain, and in tens Of thousands of cases
do maintain. their wives and families
i'm comfort and responsibility. A
book binder can earn a good deal more
than a bookkeeper and ''female
pianoforte silker" is, in the majority
of instances, much better of than the
unhappy damsel who offers 10 give
piano forte lessons at the rate of
shilling an hour. Parents of the mid
die classes. however, are imbued with
absurd notions that there is something
derogatory to their social standing in
having a son who is a jnuTneyman
carpenter, or an engine driver, or a
stonemason. The lad who wears out
his shoe leather in trudging from count
ing house to counting house in quest
ola vacant desk may be gifted with
mate mechanical genius, and only
wants Q technical training. He has
all the capacity for learning, but has
never been taught handicraft. 1t
would be q thousand times better for
him if he were forging horseshoes
and plow coulters; If ne we're sewing
pigskin or veneering wood; if he were
painting coach pannels or trimming
bammercloths. or chasing teapots, or
dialliug watches. or grinding lenses,
than that he should be dangling
about London with nothing to do, or
when he is so fortunate as to obtain
junior clerkship, that he shonld vegs-
tate on a miserabiy exiguous salary
which barely furnishes HIM with the
means of procuring sufficiency of
nourishing food, to saw nothing of
keeping up the appearance Of q
gentleman. A yourneyman black
smith may be, in the truest occupation
of the term, quite as much of a gen.
tIeman as the unfortunate stripping
whose right hand has no cunning be-
yond that of casting up columns of
figures. and who, as senior clerks
know to their sorrow, is eften mex
pert even at making the aggregates of
l.. s. ID. 1t is time that all this non
sense about gentleman vocations were
east to the winds. The fact is patent and
notorious that the supply of c!erks-or
rather. of those who think themselv es
competent to fill clerky posts-is i'm.
mensely in excess of the demand /; and
that the demand must grow every
year even smaller, as more justice con-
tinues to he done to women, and as
employers avail themselves to a
grearer extent of TIE docility and In
telli -epca of female clerks