OPPORTUNITIES OF THE FARMER. 71 



and to suffer " for the small salaries they receive ; and, in com- 

 parison with the numbers engaged, there are as many lawyers, 

 doctors, and a great many more merchants and petty tradesmen, 

 who receive less in the way of comfortable living, and a cer- 

 tainty for the future, than farmers. All these hard-working 

 orders occasionally look up to the few comets who rush madly 

 across our spheres with their golden tails, and wish vainly that 

 they, too, had the talent of turning everything into precious 

 metals; but the wish is just as preposterous and futile as the wish 

 of every soldier in the ranks to be an officer ; of every child to 

 be at once a grown man or woman ; of every operative to be 

 the wealthy manufacturer ; of every boy to be a Grant, a Lin- 

 coln or a Washington. Leaving out the lucky few, let us look 

 around among the great multitudes and see if we can better 

 our condition by exchanging places with them. In the city of 

 New York, with a population of over a million, scarce twenty 

 thousand live in houses by themselves. At least one half of the 

 whole population live in tenement-houses and cellars. There 

 were, at the last census, sixteen thousand tenant houses, con- 

 taining each an average of over seven families, in many cases 

 an entire family occupying but a single room ; and there is a 

 story of an inspector who found four living in one room, chalk 

 lines being drawn across in such a manner as to mark out a 

 quarter of the floor for each family. " How do you get along 

 here ? " inquired the inspector. " Very well, sir," was the 

 reply, " only the man in the farther corner keeps boarders ! " 

 And I regret to say that I have found many of the occupants of 

 single rooms in tenement-houses in that city, farmers by profes- 

 sion, who, in the hope of making money faster, have sold their 

 farms, deprived themselves and family of a home for their old 

 age, and so far from bettering their condition, have dropped 

 from bad to worse, until death has released them, and relatives 

 or the public have removed their families back to the country 

 or to the poor-house. Do you find the condition of the laboring 

 classes in the smaller cities and towns advanced in comfort be- 

 yond yours ? Do they work any less ? Do they have any bet- 

 ter houses — or any at all ? Do they have more or better to eat 

 or drink ? As much leisure to ride about, for social converse, 

 for self-improvement, for education of children ? And have 

 they the same certainty that farmers have of a final provision 



