The Port Gibson herald, and correspondent., 1850-03-08
Living and Means.

| theLHSelFeSs is tnat which charactprIZeS
certain individuals as destitute of financial
capacity. A kind, amiable, generous, good
sort of man. $50 runs the yarnish.) but ut
terly unqualified for the management of
his own 6nances'-'a mere child in every
thing relating to money! &c.&c.-mean-
ing that with an income of $500 year he
persisted in spending $1,000; or with an
income of $4,000 to $4,000, he regularly
spent FIVE to eight thousand, according to
his ability to run in debt or the credulitv
OF others in trusting him.
The victims Of this mmoralty-debtor
as well as creditor-are entitled to more
faithful dealing at the hands OF those not di-
rectly affected by the misdemeanors Of the
former. 1t is the duty of the community
to rebuke and repress these pernicious
| CLOSES, making the truth heard and felt
that lnordlnate expenditure is knavery and
CRIME. No man has moral right thus to
lavish on his own appettes money which
ne has not earned and does not really need !.
Ii Public Opinion were sound on this sub
ject-if man living beyond his means
when his means were commensurate with
his real needs, were subjected to the rep
rehenslon he deseryes-the evil would be
instantly checked and ultimately eradi-
Gated.
The world is full of people who can't
imagine why they don't prosper like their
nel2hbors, when the real obstacle is not in
banks nor tariffs, in bad public policy nor
hard times, but in their own extravaganza
and needless ostentation. The young me-
chanic or clerk marries and takes house.
which he proceeds to furnish twice as ex-
pensively as he can afford. and then his
wife, instead of taking hold 10 help him
earn livelihood by doing her own work,
must have hired servant to help her
spend his limited earnings. Ten years
afterward you will find him struggling on
under double load Of debts and children,
wondering why the luck was always
against him, while his friends regret his
unhappy destitution Of financial ability.
Had they from the first been frank and hon
est, he need not have been so unlucky.
Through every grade of society this
vice of inordinate expenditure insinuates
itself. The single man hired out in the
country at twenty to thirty dollars per
month, who contrives to dissolve his years
earnings in frolics and fine cloths; the clerk
who has three to FIVE hundred dollars a
year and melts down twenty to fifty of it
into liquor and cigars, are paralleled by the
young merchant who fills spacious house
with costly furniture, gives dinners and
drives fast horse on the strength Of the
profits he expects 10 realise when his goods
arc all sold and his notes all paid. Let a
man have a genius for spending, and
whether his income is dollar day or a
dollar minut" it is equally certain TO prove
inadequate. If dining, wining and party
giving won't help him through with It,
building, gaming and speculating will be
sure to. The bottomless pocket will never
fill, no matter how bounteous the stream
pouring into it. The man who being sin
gle) does Mt save money on six dollars per
week will not be apt to on sixty; and he
who does not Law up something in his first
year Of independent exertion will be pretty
likely TO wear poor mans hair into his
grave.
No man who has the natural use Of his
faculties and his muscles has any right 10
tax others with the cost of his support, az
this class Of non financial gentlemen habit
ually do. 1t is their common mistake to
fancy that if a debt is only paid at last the
obligation Of the debtor is fulfilled, but the
fact is not so. A man who sells his proper
ty for another's promise to pay next week
or next month, and is compelled to wear
out pair of boots in running after his due
which he finally gets after year or two,
is never really paid. Very often, he has
los half the face Of his demand by not hay-
ing the money when he needed it, beside
the cost and vexation of running after it.
There is just one way to pay an obligation
in full, and that is to pay it when due.
He who keeps up running fight with bills
and loans through life is continually living
on other mems means, is a serious burden
and a detrment to those who deal with
him, although his estate should finally pay
every dollar Of his legal obligations.
Inordinate expenditure is the cause of
great share of the crime and consequent
misery which devastate the world. The
clerk who spends more than he earns is
fast qualifying himself for a gambler and
a thief; the trader or mechanic who over
runs his income is very certain to become
in time trickster and a cheat. Where
ever you see man spending faster than
he earns, there look out for vlllainy to be
developed, though it be the farthest thing
possible from his present thought.
When the world shall have become wiser
and its standard of morality more lofty, it |
will perceive and affirm that profuse ex-
penditure, even by one who can pccunia-
rily afford it, is pernicious and unjustifable
that man, however wealthy, has no
right to lavish on his own appetites, his |
tastes or his ostentation, that which might
have raised hundreds from destitution and |
despair to comfort and usefulness. But
that is an improvement in public sentiment
which must be waited for, while the other
is more ready and obvious.
The meanness, the dishonesty, the iniq-
uity, of squandering thousands unearned,
and keeping others out of money that is
Justly theirs, have rarely been urged and
enforced as they should he They need |