Brother Heber has made a remark which I will take for a text. He said, "It is whispered about that some of the brethren labouring on the Public Works are living on dry bread." I want to preach a short discourse upon this subject, and I will endeavour to do so to the understanding of those present I acknowledge that some persons live very poorly, and are very destitute; but there is not one family out of a thousand in this Territory of those who live poorly, but what that destitute mode of living is brought upon them by themselves through their own mismanagement or the want of economy. For this reason I wish to confine my remarks to the principles of economy necessary in obtaining a comfortable living.
I have been a poor boy and a poor man, and my parents were poor. I was poor during my childhood, and grew up to manhood poor and destitute; and I am acquainted with the various styles of living, and with the different customs, habits, and practices of people; and I do know, by my own experience, that there is no necessity for people being so very poor, if they have judgment, and will rightly use it.
You may take the mechanics that are employed upon our Public Works. I am very well aware that the great majority of them are splendid work-men—that they can make fine buildings, with all the mason, and carpenter, and joiner work, and the painting of the very best quality of finish; and yet many of them are in poverty. We have some of the very best workers in brass, iron, wood, &c., that there are in the world; yet many of them are poor, suffer from hard living, and have to live on bread and water.
There is no necessity for any persons living on bread and water. We have not a man at work for us but what has had means put into his hands sufficient to support from five to twenty persons, and many of them could lay up from five hundred to a thousand dollars a year, if they would use proper economy. I comfortably and that, too, in a country where supported a family when I was poor, it was more difficult to do so than it is here,—where it often was almost impossible to hire to do a day's work,—where a man would have to run and, perhaps, beg, and plead to be employed to do a days work; and when the labour was performed, it was frequently worth twice the amount to get the pay, which would generally be only three or four bits; though sometimes ordinary mechanics would receive five or six bits, and good mechanics one dollar or one dollar and a quarter a day.
I have laboured for fifteen dollars a month to support a family, and that, too, in a place that was as hard again for a person to live in as it is in this city. You could not have the free use of so much as a quarter of an acre of ground thrown out to the public for a cow to graze upon. You could not get a stick of wood, although in a well wooded country, without paying for it. You could not get a pint of milk, or even of buttermilk, unless you paid the money for it.
I have worked for nearly all the various grades of wages, and supported a family since I was quite young. I know how to live, and I have taught my brethren here how to live, and I know how many of them do live. But you may take a hard-working man, one earning good wages, and though he carries an abundance into his house, his wife may sit there and toss it out again. You will find that much depends upon the economy of women, in regard to the living of the poorer class of the people—of the labouring class. For instance, let a man buy ten pounds of fresh meat and carry it home, in the morning the wife will cook up, perhaps, four or five pounds of that meat for the breakfast of the man, the wife, and a little child. To begin with, it is often cooked very badly, not properly seasoned, smoked up, part of it burnt, and the rest raw, so that they cannot eat much of it; and there is a great platter. full left that cannot be eaten, and the uncooked portion has probably been neglected until it is spoiled, and thus nearly the whole is wasted.
Sisters, if you do not believe this, many of you go home and remember what you cooked this morning, and see the platters full, and the plates full, and the little messes standing here and there. By-and-by it is not fit to eat, and it is finally thrown out of door. Is this true? It is. The reason. I say so is because I see it with my own eyes. You may wish to know where I see it. Among some of my neighbours where I visit, among some of my own family, and in many places where I go.