Year: 1879

| ASulIoi Vi lilc IitIdlu'


VIcKsBURG, April s, 1876.


Allow me through the columns of YOU
valuable paper to offer some timely advice
and make few suggestions. We know
and see every day the colored man leaving
his home In the South migrating to Kan>
sas. BE is leaving us now when we need
him most, and that is when his labor is
wanted in the fields, plowing and sowing
the cotton and corn that puts the food in
our mouths. We cannot avert this migra-
ton. What shall We do? Who shall plant
the harvest OF the coming years in the
Southern States. TO make answer would
be riddle to many of US. We will have
to get the Chinese is the answer of many.
But hold minute: in our fair cities and
towns, many young men are idle, standing
on the streets, in bar-rooms and clubs.
You stop and ask any of them: why stand
you here idle? and they will answer, be-
cause we have nothing to do we cannot
get a situation. Well, will get you sit
uation if you will accept it. You are
wanted in the fields to save yourselves and
your cities from the destruction that is
upon us. And they will tell you, l cannot
do anything like that; am clerk, and do
you think l would disgrace myself by do
1 LIB SAAO WIN VI lllo blhNG. AL, young
men, you are mistaken; your forefathers,
your most illustrious statesmen walked
behind the plow, and who by their inde-
pendence, their stout hearts and iron will,
breasted the Wilderness where perils were
broadcast over this very land where our
tiourishing cities now stand. They drove
back the red warriors and wild beasts, and
in the end they lived to see homes made
fh oh tnair nd F,r
their children and their descendants. So
now young men arise, step boldly to the
front, and go to work in the deserted fields.
Hold your heads up proudly and indie |
pendently, fear no one, and be not ashamed |
of your dress, and in the end you will find |
that work agrees with you, and health, |
happiness, and prosperity will be your
crown. Brogan shoes and homespun goods,
does that make you less a gentleman? l, |
as one of yourselves answer, No. The |
pure heart of a gentleman can be found |
beneath this homespun cloth aa well as be- |
meath the fine texture of satin and broad |
cloath Vain, foolish young men throw
aside this folly of yours that dress makes a |
mark for you in this world. You can find |
the most offensive scoundrel, dyed with |
vice ald crime, dressed up with sometimes
more flash of jewelry and fine clothing
than yourselves, and do yoy respect him
no, you do not; you try and shun him.
And another evil the city gives to you.
You are out at night, keep late hours, con-
fined to store breathing impure air that
in the end will be your death by consunp-
tion, that incurable disease; while in the
country you breathe the pure air, eat food
that gives bone and sinew, and you are
healthy So now dear Editor keen before
the young men, through your worthy pa
per, this advice, and some day many of them
will have cause to thank you for the timely
advice that dspelled this folly: that it is a
disgrace to work And further, you will
find better, purer young men, morally and
physically, and find the Southern States
saved from downfall and ruin, and the cot
ton crops double what they we're in the
past And all this will come to pass
through the energyof our Southern youths.
Wishing success to my advice, 1 remain,
yours,


A CITY BOY.