The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1850-01-07
Liyinx and Means. !.

The world is full of people who can't imagine
why they don't prosper like their neighbors, when
the real obstacle is not in banks nor tariffs, in bad
public policy hard times, but in their own ex-
travagance and needless ostentation The young
mechanic or clerk marries and takes house, which
he proceeds to furnish twice expensvely as he
can afford; and then his wife, instead of taking
hold to help him earn livelihood by doing her own
work, must have a hired servant to help her spend
his limited earnings. Ten years afterwards 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 honest, he need not
have been unucky.
Through every grade Of society this vice of inor-
dinate expenditure insinuates itself The single
man "hred out' in the country at ten to fifteen
dollars per month, who contrives to dissolve his
years earnings in frolcs and fine clothes; the
clerk who has three to five hundred dollars 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 to realize when his goods
all sold and his notes all paid. Let man have
a genius for spending, and whether his income is
dollar day or a dollar minute, it is equally cer
tain to prove inadequate. If dining, wining and
party giving won't help him through with it, build
ing, 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 single) does not save money on six
dollars Der week will not be apt to on sixty; and
he who does not lay 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 to tax others with
the cost Of his support this class OF non financial
gentlemen habitually do. 1t is their common mis-
take to fancy that If debt is only paid at last the
obligation OF the debtor is fulfilled, but the fact is
not 30. man who sells his property for another 8
promise to pay, next week or next month, and is
| compelled To wear out a pair OF boots in running
after his due, which he finally gets after year
two, is never really paid. Very often he has lost
halfhe face of his demand by not having 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 detrimeni
| to those who deal with him, although his estate
should finally pay every dollar of his legal obliga-
| tons.
| Inordinate expenditure is the cause of greai
| share of the crime and consequent misery which
devastate the world The clerk who spends more
| than he earns is fast qualifying himself for gam
bier and thief; the trader or mechanic who over
runs his income is very certain TO become in time
| trio kster and a cheat. Wherever you see mar
spending faster than he earns, there look out for
villany TO be developed, though IL be the farthes
| 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 expenditure, even by on,
| who can pecuniarily afford 1t, IS pernicious anc
| unjustifable-that a man, however wealthy, hai
no right to lavish on his appettes. his tastes
| or his ostentation, that which might have raisec
| hundreds from destitution and despair TO comfor
/ and usefulness. But that is an improvement IL
public sentiment which must be waited for, Will,
| the other is moro ready and obvious
The meanness, the dishonesty, the iniquity o
souanderng thousands uncarned, and keeping
others out OF money that justly theirs, have rarely
been urged and enforced as they should be. They
need but TO be considered and understood 10 be uni
versally loathed and detested.--N. y. Tribune