Manchester story

My name is Stan Smith. My wife and our six children moved here to Manchester, because we heard that there were great job opportunities awaiting us. Never could I have been more wrong. I work two jobs: one in a silver mine and the other on a farm. The wage is horrible. Never have I been so ashamed in my life. When we moved here, I could not afford to raise my family on my own, so my wife had to return to work. She is very near to divorcing me now, she won't say that, but I can see it in her eyes. Six kids was far too many! Speaking of the kids, I have no idea where they are half of the time. I can not afford to send them to school, yet I do not have the heart to employ them in a job to help us. Sure, every once in a while I will sign them up for a job to do, only because we are in desperate need of the money, though never a permanent one. 

My job at the mine is terrible. We mine silver in the pitch black of the mine, and we swing pick axes everywhere, rarely checking to see if someone is behind us. I'm liable to lose an eye nearly every second that I am in that godforsaken place. But we all do what we can to support our families, the man who mines the most gets the most..... That's the way it works here. The farm is just horrible as well. Every day my back feels as if it will explode. There's so much bending that must be done in order to harvest the crops, plow the land, and replant the plants. My life is horrible.