We Have Asked Several
Times For Some Turpentine At One Of The Shops, And The Answer
Always Given Is, "It Is At The Depot, But Not Unloaded."
We have been wanting turpentine to mix with the brown paint with
which we are painting, the dining-room doors.
But first of all the
paint fails, and then the turpentine, and I fully expect our
beautiful work of art will not be finished before we leave.
* * * * *
July 12th.
It is very certain that no gentleman ought to come out to this
country, or, when here, can expect to prosper, unless he has some
capital, heaps of energy, and brains, or is quite prepared to sink
the gentleman and work as a common labourer.
The latter command the most wonderful wages, there is such a
demand for them that one can hardly pick and choose. A plough-boy
gets from four to six pounds a month, an experienced man from
eight to ten pounds, besides their board and lodging; a mechanic
or artisan from fourteen to sixteen shillings a day; women
servants are very scarce, they get from four to six pounds a
month. We were so astonished at the wages in New York; the head
gardener in the Navy Yard was receiving one hundred and fifty
pounds a year, his underling, seventy-five pounds, the groom one
hundred pounds. It is surprising to me that the whole of the
poorer classes in England and Ireland, hearing of these wages, do
not emigrate, particularly when now-a-days the steerage in the
passenger ships seems to be so comfortable, and that for about six
pounds they can be landed on this side of the Atlantic.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 70 of 127
Words from 18676 to 18957
of 34200
