AGKICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 99 



dred merchants and traders, not more than three in this city 

 ever acquire independence. "It was," he continued, "with 

 great distrust that I came to this conclusion ; but after con- 

 sulting with an experienced merchant he fully admitted its 

 truth." In more recent years the same statement was made 

 by the late Abbott Lawrence ; and a canvass of the merchants 

 on Long wharf, covering a period of forty years, revealed the 

 fact that during that time only five in one hundred had not 

 failed or died destitute of property. More than this : The 

 directors of two banks in Boston, after a consultation to 

 determine the fact, found that out of one thousand merchants 

 wh6 opened accounts during forty years, only six had not 

 become bankrupt or died poor. Another instance just here, 

 and I leave this point. Freedley, in his "Treatise on Busi- 

 ness," states that accurate calculations, based upon periods of 

 twenty-five and thirty years, show that not more than one 

 per cent, of the best class of merchants in Philadelphia, and 

 not more than two per cent, of the merchants of New York, 

 ultimately retire in independence, after having submitted to 

 the usual ordeal of failure. These facts might be largely 

 multiplied — but they are sufficient to show the positive 

 uncertainty of reaching independence in city pursuits ; and 

 the positive certainty of drifting downward into want, and 

 misery, and crime, of those who live in cities without a sure 

 means of obtaining daily bread. Why, only last winter, five 

 thousand men, representing at least ten thousand persons, (in- 

 cluding their families) who were out of employment, marched 

 in procession to the Mayor of Boston and demanded labor or 

 bread ; while previous to the severe snow-storm of February 

 last (and almost the only one for the winter of any severity) 

 more than a thousand men were registered at the Board of 

 Public Works in the same city, as desirous of shoveling snow 

 at one dollar a day. And, mind you, these were respectable 

 men — they did not belong to the questionable or vicious 

 classes, but to the self-respected and worthy class. And yet, 

 as necessity knows no law ; as hungry men are beyond 

 human control, — for the animal nature is stronger than the 



