The hydraulic press., 1860-05-26
CONTEMPT OF WEALTH.

say smart tnlngS III contempt or wealth.
Even at this utilitarian day, there are sour
grape philosophers who make epigrams on
riches, and from pinnacles of beggarly pride
look down with affected scorn at the money
seeking crowd as Simon Stylites viewed
from his pillar of torture the comfortable
multitude who came to wonder at his myriad
genufections, prayers and superhuman en-
durance. We find one fellow saying-"The
neglect or contempt of riches makes man
more truly great than the possession of
them" Now your lofty philosopher should
not be moved by so low feeling as con-
tempt towards anything; and even if it were
true that contempt of wealth is greatness,
how can a poor man have it, since, accord
ing to the proyerb, it is familiarity that
breeds contempt? Sometimes knowledge
comes vicariously, but the most of US must
seek it with our own lanterns, as Diogenes
sought for an honest man hence the gen.
eral signing for that familiarity with wealth
which breeds contempt for it'll Oh for that
constant dropping of dollars which wears
away the hardness of pride
But seriously, let us say good word for
wealth-we who have it not. The genial
essayist who satirized it as the almighty
dollar" meant more than satire, and lived
TO be master of q quarter of a million units
of a fortune. He knew that wealth is power;
that it is the Archimedean lever which
moves the world. At least, it is the great
motor Of civilization. 1t built cities, the
birth places and nurses of freedom. 1t COW
cred ocean with the wings of commerce,
that went like flags of truce from warning
nation to warning nation, and opened the
way to peace. 1t made the forceful elements
steam and the subtle lightning docile
servants and feet messengers of man. It
has explored seas and found new lands. It
has swung the axe of progress against con-
tinental forests, and they have fallen like
grain Before the reaper 1t has wrested from
the feeble and unproductiye grasp of savage
men the scepter of empire, and placed it in
the conquering hand of civilization. 1t has
built ecadamies of learning, arts and SCI
ence, and even temples to the Most High
1t has raised the eyes of men above the
earth, leveled telescopes at the heavens, ex-
plorsd space and found it populous with
myriads of systems of worlds.
No lsss has it been busy in humble. works,
contributing to the comfort and elevation of
the individual man, raising hospitals for the
INDECENT, the sick, the physical and moral
bankrupts of society, and for those who
came into the world lacking the complement
of natural gifts, without the capital of per-
feet manhood. Whether employed launch
ing the Great Eastern, constructing wind
mill fer the poor of remote Jerusalem, sink
ing wells in the deserts, carpeting the hum
blest dwellings and adorning them with the
instructive beauty of pictorial art, inyenting
utensils for domestic convenience or instru-
ments to cheaper the garments Of our race
whether high or low be its works, wealth is
constantly ministering to the improvement
and happiness of mankind, and proving it
self to be the potent handmade of progress,
the practical realizer of the ideal.
1t is our slave-toiling increasingly for the
meanest of US. The aggregate wealth of
earth works for every human being on it.
AS you cannot fence out of sigh. of the land
less lovely scenery and the tender sky that
overhangs it, nor deprive them Of the influ
ence flowing from it--property though you
call it--so the benefits resulting from the
employment of wealth in every form cannot
be confined to the capitalist, but radiate to
all, Capital invests in railroads, in ocean
steamers, in trans continental stages and
expresses, in lines of telegraph, in palatial
edifces, in great newspapers, in eloquence;
but the man whose purse has been trod on
by the elephant poverty, or who never had
purse, enjoys all these things in some de-
gree, and is often made man by them
The whole land blossoms with the enter
prises of wealth, but the perfume steals over
the fence to the barefooted yagabond.-
Wealth is truly the slave Of that rusty old
lump the earth. Wo. only to those who are
slaves in turn to wealth, nistaking the means
for the end !
EMIeRANTs ACROSS THE PLAINs.-Private