Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1894-02-01
EXTREMES IN NEW YORK.
A Few Millionaires, a Number Well
Off and Swarms Poor.

Take New York, the commercial CAPT
tai, the financial center of the west
ern hemisphere, as an example of the
nations making, says Harper's
Monthly. The principal diversion OF
its citizens is vulgarly presumed to
be getting rich. Actually it contains
in proportion to its inhabitants. more
| poverty, and of 4 worse kind. than
any city on this continent. Fully a
third of its people live in tenement
houses, and their condition. in the
main. is deplorable. But, as they are
nearly illiterate and foreigners by
birth or extraction. they are not to
be considered, since this article refers
TO Americans generally, and to those
cOmprehended in the intelligent. edUl-
| Gated class. OF these more than two
thirds are probably dependent on
salaries, hence can have no ambition
| beyond bread and butter, and many
of them by no means fastidious in re
gard to the butter. An excess of one
! half of the remaining third-really
less than a third-are presumably
! small tradesmen, who must be salts
| fed II they earn a decent living, for
| the bulk Of them certainly do not.
| A few may be enabled to save some
thing, but it would be insignificant.
at its largest, to any one of the mildeSt
/ financial aspirations. This would leave
not quite a sixth for merchants. bank
ers, professional men. artists and those
supposed to be in independent circum-
stances. How many of these are lift
| cd above the bread and butter Ques-
ton? Precious few. After all the bah
/ BILE about the enormous wealth of the
I metropolis there are not by a very lib
eral estimate more than 500 million
aires proper within its entire boun-
diaries. And while the capitalists may
be enumerated by the thousands. there
| are tens and tens of thousands of
! educated men and women who are
pitifully paid. Considering the cost
of living there, it is one of the least
I desirable towns in the union for a per
son of ordinary income or earning
power to choose as Il place Of resi-
! dence. and hence; paradoxically
enough. it is forever overcrowded.
The two most lucrative callings
are generally conceded TO be, the
world over. and N New York conspicll-
ouslv. the law and banking Accounts
of the golden rewards Of lawyers and
| bankers so constantly aSsail our ears
| that we might readily regret that we
! had not selected one Or the other as
our vocation. But such accounts are
receptions. Law is remarkably uncer-
tain. Hundreds Of young men study it
who are never admitted to the bar;
than one-tenth of them practice. OF
those who practice a large majority
get so very Scant a livelihood that
they are continually driven to other
occupations to make both ends meet
New York is today full of half-stary-
! ing lawyers, while the air is ringing
| with a score Of names coupled with
munifcent incomes. How happy would
the mass of them be if they could be
sure, in the accepted sense, Of their
bread and butter.
Every block up town seems TO con
the aggregate such a number of doc
tors as to indicate that the city is Il
seat Of peStilence, when, in fact, ii
is remarkably healthful. The eXplana-
ton is that many of the doctors have
no regular patients and are compelled
to lean on patients they may pick up
A few of high repute, who attend
millionaires professionally, are flourish
ing; but the medical brothers general
ly are the opposite of pecunious. The
smallest income that Il New Yorker
with a New York family, as prescribed
a wife and two children-can sup
port himself ON decently is put al
$1,000. To attain that physician, it is
alleged, must be capable, diligent, con
scientious and watchful until past mid
dle-age. Physicians in that city gen
orally do not earn $500 a year, ana il
the country frequently not more THAI
$500 to $500. What hope have they q
rising above the bread and butter
question?
Manhattan is regarded as the para
disc of preachers because a dozen OF
more pastors of fashionable churche:
have salaries ranging from $4,000 t.
$4,000. But most of the pulpitS there
are filed by men whose pay is sucl
that they are obliged to practice rigit
economy to keep out of debt. In thu
villages and small towns Throughout
the country clergymen have nothin:
like adequate compensation for thei
labor; and to this fact is ascribed tn
remarkable decline Of late in the mum
Der of students at the theological semi
naries. Theology, indeed, is now &C
: counted one Of the callings that have
in most cases, ceased to be remunera
7 tive 1t does not respond to the grea
) practical question of the day: Touch
l ing journalism and literature, they ar
} precarious everywhere. New York i
t the sole city in America where a MAJ
in the field of true literature may liv
t by his pen; and then and there h
: must not be SqueamiSh as respect
2 his living. The prices for newspape
: work and more careful and seriou
2 work have risen materially in the las
: fifteen or twenty years, and still ten
upward. But the supply Of manu-
2 script, owing to the rapid increase Q
' writer's, distinctively of women, Ia
e long been in such excess Of the de
S mand as to depress still further til
0 inBy trade.
n SCALLOPED TURKEY.
al Init RI S M