Going to the City

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 19, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 24.

Going to the City.

"No, NONE of my boys are in Chicago," said an old farmer from Western Illinois, just returning from the Union Stock Yards, where he had sold three cars of stock of his own raising. "No, sir, my boys are all at home. I've had all of my boys in the city, though, and they know what it is. I showed 'em all around myself. I ain't one of the kind that lets boys go on thinkin' a city is the nicest place in the world, when it is just as easy as nothin' to show 'em different. I had my boys in some of the saloons along on State Street, and on the West Side, to show 'em the poor loafers, some of 'em evidently farmers' boys, come to town to get rich. We all went to the public library, as I wanted the boys to see the poor fellows there finding a good warm place to sleep until ten o'clock, anyhow. We were also in some of them dives along the levee, and I tell you the boys were disgusted with the dirt and vulgarity. My oldest boy went into the wine-room to see the girls, and come out mad, saying they were nothing but paint, powder, and stuffing, and charged him three dollars for a little bottle of wine worth about twenty-five cents.

"I had the boys look in the morning papers to see how many situations there were vacant, and how many more there were wantin' places. When we started for the train next mornin' 'arly, we see a sign out, 'Clerk Wanted,' and thirty or forty fellows standin' around waiting for the doors to open. Oh! I tell you, the boys haven't any love for Chicago, and they are stayin' home and 'tendin' to business. They have seen Chicago with their eyes open, and are satisfied to stay at home, behave themselves, and take the old farm when I get through with it. I believe this keepin' of boys in ignorance of what a great city really is, is wrong, so I do."—Sel.