Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1856-11-05
Endorsing Notes.

| There is amoral in the following WELDON
sidered remarks, from the Philadelphia Ledger.
which should be often pondered. Wives read
them to your husbands :-"Itis we'll said by a
very shrewd observer, thatthere are some things
which every man has to learn for himself. II
would seem as if the folly of endorsing what IL
called accommodation paper was one Of them
Tens of thousands have been ruined in this way I:
yet tens of thousands continue to practise Il.
Many who endorse paper with Immunity for
years discover at last, that they also in spite of
! their assertions that they would never he losers
! by it, are brought to bankruptcy by it. Sir
Walter Scott, who had gone on, from wear to
year, adding acre to acre. farm to farm. woke
one morning to find that he was ruined through
his endorsements on Constsble's paper: and the
rest of his lfe-a life shortened by excessive Ia
bor-had to be devoted, not to carrying out the
favorite dream of his ambition, but to liquidat-
| ing the debt thus contracted Even Barnum,
whose name had become synonymous with
shrewdness, fell before this deusiye habit. A
calm observer is almost led to believe that there
| is an infatuation accompanying the practise of
endorsing notes, which lulls sagacity to sleep,
else how can he account for the fact that so ma
ny able men have, so to speak, gambled away
their fortunes on this mercantile rouge ct nOir.
| No man ought ever to endorse an accommoda-
ton note. The financiering which raises money
in this way is radically wrong. Generally re-
garded as the cheapest, it is really the dearest
method; for the friend who endorses for you is
sure, some time, to want an endorsement in
turn; and he who once begins to endorse for an
other has put his fortune at the risk Of q hum
dred casualties, beyond his own control. 1t is @
game Of hazard, which, once commenced, hard
ly ever can be stopped. Money can be got so
readily by endorsing, that the temptation is
great to enter on speculatons that would never
otherwise be thought of, and hence it requires
tie coolest of heads and the most prudent of OPP
orators to resist becoming too extended when
habit of exchanging endorsement has been fall
en- into. Nine men out ten, sooner or later, get
beyond their depth. Hard times comes on,
and then insolvency follows, as matter OF
course 1t is always wiser to raise money on
bona fde securities; and if these cannot be had,
then to curtai ones business as fast as possible
Where two men are in the habit of exchanging
endorsements, they are really in partnership to-
gether; but partnership only of risks-not Of
profits and, worse yet a partnership in which
neither can control the other.
So far, we have been speaking Of cases in
which there was mutual consideration between
the PARTISAN exchange of endorsements; but
what shall we say of the man who endorses
from motives of private friendship, and not as a
business affair at all? Hundreds of such men
there are who endorse notes for social intimates
to whom they would scarcely sell bill ofgoods
on credit, simply because they have not the
moral courage to say no. 1t would be wiser, in
such instances, to give the applicants at once
whatever you can afford to throw away-for
then you know where you are because if you
endorse for him he may involve you for larg-
or amount than you can pay; and be sure of
one thing-wheT you pay, as most likely you
will, it will be at time when the payment is
especially inconvenient No private friendship,
however close, justifes one man in asking an
other to endorse for him. He who takes offence
when refused an endorsement is unworthy to be
your friend; for he is ignorant wherein true
friendship consists-that relation giving no man
q right to ruin another. Take advice in time,
and don't give or exchange endorsements if you
would escape slsepless nights or avert probable
insolvency. ''