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Occupations possible to one-armed men:

Overseers.
Messengers.
Small parcel carriers.
Tally-men.
Inspectors of all kinds.
Watchmen.
Bell-ringers.
Collectors.
Assessors.
Tax gatherers.
Doorkeepers.
Ushers.
Pound-keepers.
Waiters.

We know of the case of a man having but one arm, and that the left who cuts wood, plants and digs potatoes, husks corn, drives oxen, and sometimes holds the plough!

PROPOSITION THIRD.

National Military Homes or Asylums should be created, which should he semi-industrial; on entering them the Invalid should relinquish his pension, if a private soldier; or if an officer, then so much of it as would be an equivalent for his board.

There will always be found among invalids a large class of men who have no homes of their own to which they can repair; or else, although possessed of a home among relatives, are yet in that condition of disability which renders it necessary that they should have constant personal attendance, -- thus, either making great demands upon the already occupied time of others, or requiring the employment of an attendant and an additional expenditure for his salary. In order to meet the wants of this class, National Military Homes or Asylums should be created. But the number of these should be as small as is compatible with due regard to the wants of this class, and none should be admitted into them except such as can prove either,

1st. That they have no homes of their own, or,

2d, That their home, if any, is with relatives, unable to support or supply them with such care as their condition requires. (3)

These homes or asylums should not, however, be allowed to tempt men into entering them, by holding out any expectations of idleness and absence of occupation. Mankind, whenever left free to choose, are, under all circumstances, disposed to indolence rather than industry, and more particularly so, when, their daily bread being secured to them, no special or higher ambition stimulates to effort. The tendency in such cases, and with the mass of men, is to sink at once into sloth, and to surrender themselves up to habits of idleness and personal indifference to the future. To such men, in fact, there is no future. To-day is their all in all. Feeling that the State has adopted them for life, they too often allow ambition and self-respect to decline, the moment the necessity to earn their daily bread is removed. The Soldier's Home, at Washington, is a very striking illustration of this melancholy truth. In the report on this establishment, hereunto appended, it is said that "the surgeon considers that the present regulations, or others more stringent still, should be strictly insisted on, in order to keep the establishment in proper order. Men with nothing to do are restive under prohibitory laws, and will disregard them. This is true of the superannuated, as well as the youthful. The difference between them on the score of insubordination is one of degree and not of kind."

In order to guard against the results of this form of human weakness, these Military Homes or Asylums should be semi-industrial; that is to say, that wherever a man can work, he should be made to work up to a certain age, and in accordance with his ability, the medical officer of the asylum being the judge of the number of hours each inmate should be employed daily. By these means much of the discontent and restlessness which ever attend upon inactivity would be avoided; men stimulated by the atmosphere of industry about them would cultivate habits of frugality -- of order and of self-respect, and would learn precisely what army life unteaches them, individuality and independence. The consciousness of earning something -- of having a little purse of their own, due solely to their individual efforts, and over which government had no control, would operate as a spur to enterprise, and an invitation to economy. For, the value of money is truly understood by those alone who have made strenuous efforts for its acquisition.

As to the character of the labor to be performed, each man should be allowed his choice, where nothing special forbids it, and every effort should be made to stimulate industry by giving to the laborer a tithe of the productive result of his industry. In this way every one knowing himself to be a participant in the gains of the establishment would be stimulated to increased efforts, and the apparent hardship of the enforced toil would be done away with. The labor, also, would be stripped of its resemblance to convict labor, by the fact of the share allowed each one in the nett gains. No excuse would be afforded them, therefore, for refusing to work cheerfully and with a good will. Having a joint interest with the government in the productive industry of the asylum, they would constantly strive to increase its annual profits by elevating the quality of the labor performed, so that in time, from the humblest and coarsest artizanship, they would pass to its highest and most complex manifestations. And it is not saying too much to venture the assertion that invalids might in time come to earn at least twice the original amount of their pension.