The Tarboro' Southerner

For the Southerner.

Immigration.

BALTIMORE, Md., Feb. 16, 1873.

EDITOR SOUTHERNER:

Dear Sir—The tendency to uneasiness, as regards their present prospects, and the desire to move West, or somewhere away from North Carolina, has become too prevalent among the young and middle aged people of your great and promising State, and, while I have long since carried out such a desire and greatly benefited my condition, I am fully persuaded that not one out of a hundred that leaves dear old North Carolina, to seek a fortune elsewhere, will at all better his condition. To say that none will rejoice at leaving your State would be folly, but I do say, that the prospects and chances of success, for energetic men in it, will assume beautiful proportions to each and every young man who goes West when he finds that all of his energies will have to be fully taxed in his new home to sustain him, and when he realizes that if the same energies were or could be exerted in North Carolina what his reward would be.

When a man goes away from friends and the home of his childhood, to seek a fortune in this cold and uncharitable country—that is now pregnant with corruption—he undertakes a task that will prove hard, hard indeed. In my humble opinion he will soon discover that one half the labor and attention to business, that will be required of him in his new home, would soon draw towards him, in the home he left, not only the confidence and respect of the entire community, but a quicker success than he can possibly, with few exceptions, obtain elsewhere.

All the large cities, both East, West, North and South, are crowded with unemployed applicants for labor of any kind. In the city I live in, I have known as many as "five hundred" young men to be out of employment at one time; and that city is growing rapidly. If a young man is a mechanic, of any kind, and desires to improve his talent, a city is the place to go to, for the accomplishment of this object; but if he seeks a salesman's position, the city promises very little for his services, not as much by far as a living at home, unless he can carry with him an influence capable of drawing immediately around or to his employer a paying trade.

I have known hundreds of instances where young men, after coming to the city of my adoption, full of hope and great expectations, to be compelled to work for salaries ranging from $200 to $350 per annum. You can readily imagine how difficult it was for them to live, in a city of any kind, on such small sums. In two thirds of these cases they returned, after the first year, to their homes, both wiser and better men, for sad experience had taught them a lesson long to be remembered and that through life would prove a blessing beyond measure.

These facts are equally applicable to men in every grade of life, to the farmer—the lawyer—the doctor—all of whom will find, that by proper diligence and energy, they can succeed as well, nay better, in North Carolina, where they were born and raised, than in any new and strange country to which they may go poor and expect to grow rich.

This article has been hurriedly prepared and is not what I desire it should be, but I hope I will be understood, and emphatic too, in advising young and old to remain at home in preference to being enticed away by any of the many flattering inducements offered by various communities and States. Energy, honesty and frugality will make success smile on you as quick in North Carolina as in California, or anywhere else.

Young man don't go West; stay at home.

W. B. F.