"GENTLEMEN HELPS."

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 306, 17 April 1877, Page 4

"GENTLEMEN HELPS."

A thousand applicant* for a- berth of thirty ifctfttng* * week, and five hundred applicant* for* berth of twenty shillings! Thorn must be something csa.ntbßy unsound about a community, prosperous and wealthy although it fancies itself, where •nob incident* ordinarily occur. Perhaps too oM apologue of the Gentleman and too Baeketmaker may help us to understand the matter. At home the Gentleman waa » great swell, and the Basketmaker waa a nobody. Cast on the desert island the Gentleman was helpless and uasleas, while the Basketniaker delighted thei savages by his wicker works of art. Bhgf a M seems to hare rwached the deserfisland stage. That which we style education, but which is very far from being complete education, ha» become so widely spread that a man who can read, write, and cipher ia just the reverse of a phenomenon!. He is as common "an occurrence" aa a woman who can sew, and so, la consequence of the modern distaate for muscular labour, and for what are absurdly called ** menial occupations," all berths where the three ft's come into play for men, and stitching comes into play for women, are eagerly run after. Hence the 3 pica! clerk and the typical sempstress, ways in excess of the demand, and always underpaid. But the Poor Gentleman who* applied for the situation above referred to implies that his ambition is not confined to clerkly work, and that he would willingly take a situation as " forest keeper or gamekeeper, or even gardener or coachman." But he lias here; named four methods of gaining a livelihood, all of which demand special «|UaMe»tions and special training. Middle-class town-bred men would trad it no easy matter to acquire the requisite experience, and even men of the higher ranks, who can ride and shoot, and who know what country life is, would in most cases tint! they had much to learn before they could be called satisfactory grooms or gamekeepers. The real remedy lies in the old Jewish custom. Every man—and woman too we may add in these days—should in youth bo taught a- trade, whatever their rank, suitable to their physical and mental capacities; and then, while, on the one hand, we should be relieved from the painful spectacle of thousands of well-educated (so-called) men and women snatching at some miserablypaid berth, we should, on the other hand, he less at the mercy of the carpenter, the painter, the plumber, and other varieties of the ** British workman," who are apt to presume on our known helplessness.— €h*ph/ic.