Edwardsville Spectator

FROM NILES' REGISTER,

AN EXTRACT.

"That in this country, there is no necessity for any one to be idle, on account of a superfluity of laborers, and that we receive commodities to a vast amount from abroad, which ought to be made at home, are facts admitted by every one. Hence it is that though a superfluity of laborers does not exist, there is a severe want of employment. It is estimated that there are 20,000 persons daily seeking work, in Philadelphia. In New-York, 10,000 able bodied men, are said to be wandering the streets looking for it—and, if we add to them the women who desire something to do, the amount cannot be less than 20,000. In Baltimore, there may be about 10,000 persons in unsteady employment, or actually suffering because they cannot get into business—we know several decent men, lately "good livers," who now subsist on such victuals, as two years ago, they would not have given to their servants in the kitchen. Here are 50,000 persons, in three cities, wholly or partially idle; admit that they obtain half employment, just enough to keep them from becoming an incumbrance on others, and average the value of what they might earn, at only 50 cents per day, and the amount of loss is 12,000 dollars per day, 75,000 per week, 300,000 per month, &c.—Here we see how the want of employment strikes at national wealth, and thousands who are best disposed to support themselves decently, by labor, are in a state of positive suffering, because they have not any thing to do. The distress of the people has reached an alarming extent, and there is no considerate man, in our large cities and towns, that looks to the approaching winter, without anticipating scenes of misery such as he never before witnessed."