Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1916-06-14
The CITY Offers
few ADVANTAGES
Chicago Banker Gives Some
Sound Advice to Young
Men and Women.
SHOWS RURAL OPPORTUNITY
Farmer has Greater Possibility Of
Comfort In Old Age, With More
Wholesome Pleasure and
Real Cultivation.

~ UNLESS the young man is spe-
cia1ly trained by education
and practice for some particu-
lar kind of work to be found
In the city, or has capital to be in
vested in some legitimate enterprise,
he will be better off in the country or
small town.
Cities are all overcrowded. Jobs In
all ordinary lines of industry are
more job-hunters than jobs. With so
much competition for work, labor is
cheap and wages are low.
It costs much more to live in the
city than in the country. If man
receives low wages he must find shell
ter in loW-class 1odgings-crowded,
dirty, garretlike places in poor neigh
borhoods where fresh air is at a pre-
MUM and the constant noise madden
ing. He cannot buy good, nourishing
food but must get along on what he
can afford to buy. Consequently his
health suffers. He cannot afford to
buy clothing of good quality, so he
AuSL WCdl 0AOOuJs 11O SCI41 SC1S = HULL
ing out of small earnings, so sickness
or any other emergency need for funds
finds him in serious circumstances.
And to live as he must live is con-
slant invitation to sickness.
City Pleasure False.
There seems to be an impression
in the country that life in the city
is one continual round of entertain
ment and pleasure. All such so-caIled
pleasure is expensive and all of it be-
comes quickly tiresome. There is the
saloon, the low-class moving picture
show and the dive, as forms of enter
tainment not found in a majority of
small towns. But in the city men who
cannot afford better things have a
tendency to drift to these places and
get acquainted with people and habits
that wreck character. City entertain
ment is false, artificial.
I have been up in the Dakotas quite
bit. | have found that farmers and
small town people usually are better
read than the average city person
better informed about worthwhile
things than I am. They get good
newspapers and good magazines in the
rural communities. They can hear
the worlds finest music on the pho.
nograph. They get as much dramatic
entertainment as the majority Of city
people get, for in every village and
town there is at least one moving pic
ture show. They are always within a
few hours of the city's rush and bang,
for the express train and electric in
terurban limited penetrate every cor
ner Of the nation.
The Unwary Girl.
And the young woman who wants to
leave the old home town or the farm
for the city? 1t is much harder for
her to get along than for the young
man. Wages for women in the indus
tries are very low and jobs are
scarce. Decent living conditions are
beyond her reach unless she gets good
pay. Pitfalls for the unwary or unfor-
tnnate young woman are everywhere.
Even If the girl must work az do
nestle back in the home town she gets
as much pay likely as she can get
without special training in the city.
Living conditions are healthful, phys
ically and morally. in the rural corn-
munity. Recently I watched a large
crowd of girl workers enter a factory.
Nearly every one wore those high
French heeled shoes. I venture not
one had bank savings account. Sup
pose one Of those girls gets sick, or
the factory shuts down. What can
she do?
The whole nation will be vastly bet
ter off when our young men and young
women of the small towns-I include
cities Of ten thousand population in
this description-decide to make the
most of onoortunity at home.