The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1872-12-21
CAN YOU AFFORD IT.

Can you afford to work hard all day,
and read, study or court vagaries Of
society nearly all night, thus wasting
your vitality, exhausting your nerv-
Gus system and bringing on premature
disease, decay and old age:
Can you afford to read fine print
with a poor light in rail car, where
tho motion disturbs the proper focus
OF vision, thus weakening your eyes
70 as to nearly deprive you ofthe pow
OK to use them either in reading or in
the daily duties Of life: Even though
sou do not have an ocuIist to pay, you
may be obliged to wear glasses ton or
fifteen years sooner than you other
wise would; can you thus afford to
spoil your eyes to save a little time?
Can you afford to eat hastily, and
then rush to study or business, with
drawing tho nervous energy from the
digestive system to the brain and mus
eles, thus inducing dyspepsia, in few
years at most, to scourge and haunt
and make you miserable for years, or
for your life?
Can you afford to live on rich and
highiy-seasoned food; cat champagne
suppers, because an artificial appetite
is thus gratified, rendering govt, dys-
pepsia, or apoplexy, in the middle Of
life, almost a certainty:
Can you afford to commit suicide
through the indulgence OF eppetite and
passion, adopting the FOOLS m otto?-"A !
short life and happy cnc."
Can you afford to keep your brain
boiling hot in reading sensation novels,
thus unbalancing and rendering NOR
bid your mental and physical constitu-
ton?
Can you afford to indulge in fast liv-
ins-dressing beyond your means,
driving livery horses OF keeping =
horse- yourself-when your income is
not adequate to such expenses?
Can you afford to smoke and chew
tobacco, thus spendingfrom five to fiftv
dollars a month and injuring your ner-
vous system and pervertins your whole
and thereby transmitting
to your children weakened constitu
tion, thus making them puny invalid,
for life?
Can you afford to burn your nervous
system and demoralize your whole
character by the .lsc Of alcoholic
liquors?
Can you afford to gain even the
whole world and thereby make Your
self moral wreck7
Can you afford, for the sake OF mo-
mentary amusement, to waste your
youthful preparatory years, when, by
study you should become "A scholar. or
by industry tradesman or useful
artisane
Can you afford to rob your mind to
clothe your back with silks and satin.
and GRITTY more love for display
Can you afford to be tricky, and
thereby defraud your employer of the
just services you owe him, even though
you do not get your pay, thus making
yourself a moral bankrupt? !
Gan you afford to be otherwise than
upright, truthful, faithful, temperate,
courteous and in all respects correct:
Pupils in school sometimes fancy
they ara doing smart thing by deceiy-
Ing tho teacher, that they may play
instead of study. Apprentice. often
neglect their duty for fun and amuse-
nent, and fail to learn their trade,
which is lifelong injury to them.
Many people do wrong knowingly,
and thus mar their moral nature and
mako themselves feel mean, unworthy
and despicable, and because tho world
don't know it, they think they have
done themselves no harn,-but thew
carry the moral scar OF wrong doinr
through life. Can one afford to have
motto adverse to the Old sdag-, that
"Honesty is tho 81 ppl.y."
Reader, stop an~i consiuor uhcth.,
what you are doing, or what YOU PRO-
pose to do, will pay; WI ether Won can
afford to do it. "'Ti;n@ i, ,noncr.,r do
not throw it away, but make every