from their employers, for the first year, sufficient to find them in clothes, and the second in board and clothing. Boys of fourteen can be apprenticed to any trade for six or seven years, boarded, educated, and allowed sufficient to find them handsomely in clothes and other necessaries. Girls of eight and boys of ten years of age may be apprenticed out, boarded clothed educated and taught trades, girls till eighteen, and boys twenty-one without premium and free of any charge. "Broken down tradesmen and decayed gentry make but poor progress in this country; and unless people can well afford to pay for help they must learn to help themselves, particularly in the interior, where a livelihood is so easily obtained that people are unwilling to enter into service. Those who settle in the country with high Aristocratic notions will soon find out their mistake, and unless disposed to correct themselves will soon become dissatisfied. "We shall quote from the New York price current, the present rate of leading articles. When we speak of the prices of commodities, labour, land &c. it must be taken subject to great variations, as only a few miles apart in location will frequently make twenty or thirty per cent difference in prices. The reader should bear this in mind. "Provisions and Groceries in New York are, we presume, about half the price they are in London. House rent as high. Most articles of hardware and woollen twenty or thirty per cent higher. Low cotton goods as cheapfine a little higher. Fuel here is dear, in the country cheap. At Pittsburg, and in all the coal districts, it is delivered for three cents per bushel. West of the city of Pittsburg, between 38 and 41 degrees of N. Latitude, in the vicinity of Government lands, and in coal districts, the land is cheap and good. "The practice of the German and Swiss emigrants is worthy of imitation; they go immediately from the Havre ships, on their arrival here, on board the Tow-Boats for Albany, to their place of destination in the west, like birds of passage. The Havre Packet ship Francois has brought out, within two years, upward of six hundred German and Swiss emigrants, and during that period only a single in dividual (a man of property) has returned by that ship to Europe to settle. This information 1 obtained from the first Officer of the ship Aug. 14, 1832." Englishmen look at this !!! We think the western part of the State of Pennsylvania, the whole of the States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, between 38 and 41 N. Latitude, as most desirable for location (but Englishmen need not go beyond Ohio) we consequently exclude the whole of New York State, all the Eastern and Atlantic, the Southern and western Slave States, Michigan, and both upper and lower Canada. "The city of New York is in latitude 40°. 42'. 43′′ of N. Latitude, and we have been obliged to keep fires in our parlours from the 22nd Sept. 1831 to the first of July 1832, upwards of nine months, (the last winter, however was unusually long*) those who settle north of us may well complain of cold winters. It is no unusual thing for farmers in both the Canadas to have their crops of Indian corn, potatoes, beans, pease &c. destroyed by the frost at Midsummer. Buffalo harbour which is South of 43° N. L. was closed with ice up to the 9th of May 1831, and the 30th of April 1832. It commenced snowing there on the 17th. November last and continued to snow for forty-two days in succession, when it was six feet deep. At St. Johns New Brunswick on the 6th June last, they had not experienced one summer's day, or a vestage of vegetable developement. "Persons in Great Britain, who correspond with their friends in the United States, should send their letters by way of Liverpool or London, directed to go by the first ship to New York, paying the inland postage only ;-the charge to New York [by water] is only six cents. (See in list of the rate of postage.) "In the western part of the State [N. York] Michigan, and in the Canadas the land is excellent; but the winters, how long! Nothing is more conclusive of the preference of the climate and soils we recommend to those more north and south, than the excessive increase of the population of the Western over the other States. The census of the * Probably two months longer than it commonly is: but let people know the worst as well as the best. population of both the Canadas (which have been settled centuries) amounted in January last to only 734,865, while the Western States doubled their population in tea years. The State of Ohio forty-five years ago had scarcely a white family in it, now it exceeds a million, and is the fourth State in the union in amount of population. In 1790 it was only three thousand.* Land may always be obtained there at reasonable prices; good farms, one half under cultivation, can be bought for five dollars an acre, yielding abundant crops to moderate labour and attention. One half the labour applied to common agriculture in England, will produce thirty bushels of wheat per acre here—judicious culture will produce forty. Potatoes from three to six hundred bushels per acre. Indian corn not unfrequently one hundred bushels, and other crops in the same proportion. Cattle, horses, sheep, and swine increase and thrive remarkably well. All kinds of grain, grass, and other crops, fruit and vegetables. Castor beans yield fifty bushels per. acre, and worth two dollars per bushel. Buck wheat after a crop of wheat or rye the same season. Some fruits which in England are nursed only in hot houses, here are raised in the open fields. The poor here, may in some measure live like the rich in England, with this exception, there many of them have the sour flavour of other men's labour in it, here they have the sweet taste of their own industry. "We do not recommend to Europeans to locate themselves in wildernesses; their habits require the proximity and assistance of previous settlers: nor do we recommend them to settle in populous cities. The constant influx of Emigrants into the maritime cities deteriorates the price of labour very materially; for notwithstanding human labour is the most valuable article this nation possesses, yet it is possible to overstock any one market with it. This is the case at present at New York, and other seaports. "Emigrations of late have been so excessive, and so many arrive without the means of going into the interior, that As people have gone there to settle, they have informed their friends, by which the richness and beauty of that State being kuown, have drawn emigrants to it. 66 much disappointment is experienced in not finding that ready employment on their landing which they anticipated. During the seven years from 1820 to 1827, the whole number of emigrants arriving in the United States, averaged only ten thousand five hundred aud sixty per year. Last year there arrived at the port of New York alone thirty-one thousand seven hundred and thirty nine; and at Quebec forty-nine thousand and sixty-two, of whom a large portion foolishly made their way to this city instead of going west. There arrived here (N. York,) in eighteen days of June last seven thousand and thirty-one, and from the first of April to the last of August inclusive thirty-three thousand two hundred and ninety-three. To Labourers. "In the western country there is always plenty of employment for almost every body, even in the winter season, which is not to be obtained at all in the Atlantic States when the earth is bound up with frost. To Sailors. &c. "Such is the facility of navigating by steam on the western waters, where fuel and provisions are cheap, that merchandise is conveyed from New Orleans to St. Louis, in Missouri, twelve hundred miles (all against the Stream) for seventy cents per hundred weight, and deck passengers for four dollars each. Even at these low rates, many boats clear their first cost in a trip from Pittsburg to New Orleans and back. "There were erected in Cincinnatti,* last year, five hundred and five new houses, and nearly as many the two previous years, (the population in 1830 was twenty-six thousand five hundred and seventy three.) There were fourteen steam boats built, measuring in the aggregate two thousand three hundred and thirty tons, and costing one hundred and eighty-four thousand five hundred dollars. The land upon which Cincinnatti is built, 640 acres is said to have cost, about forty years ago, 49 dollars,-now some parts of it are said to be worth thirty dollars a foot. * A town on the River Ohio. CHAP. XXV. Money. The exchange on England is generally favourable for the removal of property to this country, seldom less than 8 or 10 per cent, which can be best effected by investing it in London, through the medium of country banks in the United States, or any New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio State Funds, as they are generally to be bought at lower prices in Europe than here, independent of the exchange; for large amounts this is always to be preferred; besides it has the advantage of bearing Interest all the time of transporting, which others have not. Next to this, Bank of Eugland Post Bills, full weight Sovereigns, or letters of credit from Respectable houses in England to good houses here." Persons on their arrival here, not bringing out American funded property, should immediately invest all their spare money in government security, or place small amounts in the Savings Bank, which can be drawn out any where, and at any time. They should not purchase any land for many months, nor till they have seen it, and found the title good. Let strangers be ware of laying out money on doubtful titles. Emigrants should early understand the different sorts of currency, both of cash and bills. As to cash, it is chiefly in silver, very little gold being in circulation. If they bring gold they can change it at the money brokers, and this they should do before they go into the country, for very few are to be found there. Sovereigns in New York sell higher some times than at others, generally four dollars and 76 or 77 cents; 80 is a high price but they must be full weight for this. The cash currency is chiefly Dollars, half Dollars, quarter Dollars, Ten-cent pieces or dismes, Five-cent or half disme, and copper Cents, and Half cents. English silver coin is not current, but French and Spanish is; of the former are Fivefrank pieces each pass for 94 cents 100 50 |