The newspapers are always an unfailing resort, as a hopeful source of information of any demand for labor. A newspaper in the very early morning, before the city is astir, is a treasure, for any clew to work can then be promptly followed up with some chance of one’s being the first to apply. Papers are to be had in abundance later in the day in public reading-rooms and about railway stations and hotel-corridors. It is, however, the newspaper damp from press that is most valuable to us, and between us and its possession is often the insuperable barrier of its price. The journals which early post their issues upon bulletin-boards are public benefactors, and about these boards in the early dawn often there are groups of men who study closely the “want columns.” A very little experience was enough to disclose the fact that there is a wide difference in the character of these notices in different newspapers. In some issues the want-column is very short, but the statements bear every mark of genuineness; in others it is promisingly long, but, when carefully analyzed, it proves to be chiefly a collection of decoys for the unwary. The city seems to be full of men and women seeking employment. Not only are there the penniless common workmen of my class, whose number must be reckoned in many thousands, and among whom the professionally idle form, of course, a large percentage, but there are multitudes of mechanics and skilled workers, of whom Clark is a type. And beyond these is an army of seekers after salaried posts like those of clerks and bookkeepers and the various subordinate positions of business and professional life. Not all were penniless when they began their search for work there. Hundreds of them had a little store of money when their last employment gave out, or they brought with them when they came their savings, which they hopefully counted upon to last until a new place had been found.