It is a great pity that representative workingmen in our large cities cannot once in a while be sent on a tour of observation by their respective trade societies. It is the custom of almost every man to regard every one in his own business as about in his own condition. But an observing man going outside of the large cities and the manufacturing towns will quickly be undeceived regarding the possibilities and future of his own business, or of himself, or of any of his associates who have any spirit in them. He may find men of his own specialty doing work longer hours per day and for less money than he is accustomed to get, and they may seem to be having terribly hard times, but there is one significant difference between the two classes: the men in new countries never grumble at whatever their hard times may be. If nature refuses a crop, or makes a river overflow and washes away a town, or a plague of locusts comes upon them, they can grumble quite as badly as any one else. But so far as they have free use of their own wits and their own hands, they “don’t ask nothin’ of nobody,” to use their own emphatic expression. The mechanic who works all day in the newer countries can seldom be found in the beer-shop at night. He drops into the post-office, or the store, or the office of the justice of the peace, or wherever he sees a crowd of men, or knows that men will congregate, so that he may learn what is going on. He will change his business six times in the week, and then be guilty of doing it twice on Sunday, if there is any money in it. You never know the business of a man in a new country for more than a week at a time, unless you have your eye on him. It may seem awfully stupid to the stranger, but among people where his lot is cast the workingman manages to keep his end up, as the saying is, and the man who attempts to depress that end is dealt with by the individual himself. If a laboring man aggrieved in any of the newer countries were to go to his fellow-workmen for relief, he would be called either a fool or a coward. If he does not like what he is doing he is expected to try something else, just as every one else in the country does. The banker does not restrict himself to one single business, or one subdivision of business. Neither does the merchant, or the manufacturer, or any of the few farmers who have become “forehanded.” He does whatever he sees most money in, and he has blind faith in his ability to do it. It may not be the finest variety of finished labor, but that is not found anywhere except in the competitive trades.