I knew a boy, an Englishman, a stranger in the country, who in less than a day's seeking got a place as entry-clerk at five dollars a week in a large notions house. He lived on it, I don't know how, and I fancy he would have difficulty in explaining, for six months, and then applied for an increase. The firm, which was noted for its close methods, refused; and the English lad, who was nearly desperate, simply resigned and walked into the place next door and applied for work. There was nothing for him there, nor next door, but before he had gone two blocks he found employment at seven dollars a week. The firm was doing a large business, which necessitated his staying until seven or eight o'clock two or three evenings a week. On such occasions he received fifty cents supper money. This boy shared a furnished room in Brooklyn with a friend, and took his meals at cheap restaurants. His extra fifty cents was, therefore, clear gain. The boys who boarded did not fare so well. One of them, however, was able to find a boarding-house near enough for him to go to it for all his meals, and so secured the same benefit, and, in addition, all the advantages that come with having a settled home and regular habits. This boy, too, had secured a place with no more influence than that of the roommate his slender finances compelled him to take when he came to the city looking for work. Both of these boys were unusually bright. Though they had to work hard, they found time to study at night. The English boy studied mechanical drawing, and is now a successful designer in an architectural iron-works. The other boy studied medicine, and is now a resident physician in a large hospital. A third boy in the same office is now an editor. A fourth is a successful life-insurance canvasser, and has lately insured the lives of the other three. All four of these boys would rather have been in the stock, but they couldn't afford to live on the low wages they would have had to take. They were too ambitious to remain clerks, and so fitted themselves for other employments. A fifth boy had not sufficient application or ambition to follow their example, and a short time ago he was still a book-keeper, and was making not over twenty dollars a week—not a rapid advance in fourteen years. A sixth boy staid in the office until he was earning ten dollars a week, lived on eight, and saved two. When he had a hundred dollars he applied for a place in the stock. As he had been four years with the firm, and was twenty-one years old, they gave him six dollars a week to begin on. This, with the money he had saved, enabled him to live as well as the year before. The following year he was raised to eight dollars; in six months, to twelve; six months later, to fifteen, and he is now head of his department and buyer for a large importing house. He receives a salary of five thousand a year, and a share in the profits of his department, which amounts to as much. He makes two trips every year to Europe, and has all his expenses paid while he is travelling for the house. Of those six boys, the parents of only two lived in the city.
Thus far I have treated only of the chances in wholesale mercantile establishments, such as deal in dry goods, hardware, and so forth. These, however, form only a small portion of the business enterprises in New York. There are banking houses, manufacturing concerns, publishing houses, insurance companies, and hosts of agents for anything and everything, not to mention the great number of retail stores, all of which employ clerical assistance, and in any one of which the country lad looking for work may suddenly find himself employed. It is a saying, as true as it is old, that it is the unexpected that happens.
I know a boy who had lived all his life in the city, whose parents were people of position and influence. He spent three weeks, working six hours a day, in calling upon every business man he knew, or whom his father knew, or to whom he could get letters of introduction, asking for work, and finally found it through a young fellow of his own age whom he had met casually during his previous summer vacation. So it may be with the country boy. The opening, when it does come, may be in the very opposite direction from that in which he is looking. If he is wise he will slip into it, however different it may be from what he wants. He will at least be earning money, and can keep up his search for what he does want until he finds it. If he is faithful and energetic he will gain the approval of his employers, and be able to take a city reference with him when he leaves for the "something better."
He may even find that there are unsuspected opportunities in the place that seemed so unpromising to him when he took it. A great deal depends upon the boy. Some boys will rise more quickly in one place than in another. The boy who is bound to rise will get to the top no matter where he finds himself. Few boys would take a position behind the counter in a retail store if they could get anything better, yet some clerks rise to be floor-walkers, and some floor-walkers rise to be buyers, and some buyers become partners and proprietors and amass great wealth.
I know one young man who had a good position in a wholesale hardware house, who gave it up to take a place at lower wages in a retail store. He argued that as the retail hardware business was not one which usually attracted energetic and ambitious young men he would meet with little competition from his fellow clerks. He was right. They knew only one side of hardware, the retail side. He knew hardware inside and out. He soon found that he knew more than the proprietor, and showed him how he could buy to better advantage. Then he said he thought he would go back to his old place, but his employer offered him an interest in the business, and he staid.
I know another boy who had some experience in retail clothing in an interior town. He came to New York, answered an advertisement, and obtained work in a large retail clothing house here. Then he studied clothes. When he had learned all about clothes, he studied cloths. He made friends with young men of his own age who were employed in importing houses and commission houses, and learned the difference between English cloths and French cloths and American cloths. Whenever he could he would go into other clothing stores, price their goods, perhaps try on a suit, and observe their methods. One day a fellow-salesman came to him, and said: "I have just come into a legacy of twenty thousand dollars, and I am going into business on my own account. But all I know is how to sell ready-made clothes. I know very little about cloth, and nothing about manufacturing or buying clothes. If you will come with me and attend to that end of the business, I will give you a two-fifths interest." That firm now imports its foreign cloths direct, and its American goods are manufactured to its order.
Such are the stories of a few boys whom I know. They show how some boys came to the city to seek employment and found it, and may serve to show the way to others.
THE HORSE OF THE SHEIK OF THE MOUNTAIN OF SINGING SANDS.
With the money which they secured from the spoils of the Arab tribe, Ducardanoy, the ventriloquist, and Bouchardy, the prestidigitateur, purchased a fine vineyard at Nouvelle Saar-Louis. The story of the manner in which they had acquired their money passed from mouth to mouth among the European population, and at length the Arabs of the town heard it, and repeated it to their brethren of the desert. At times the ex-chiropodists saw strange Arabs loitering in the road before their premises and regarding the house with careful scrutiny, but the garrison was not far away and no acts of violence were committed. It was nearly a year, however, before they ceased to have apprehensions of poniard thrusts in the back or of awaking to find their house in flames.