American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1873-02-08

1t was an aphorisE1 among the Latins,
now worn threadbare, that no one was
ever utterly base of sudden; nor was
any man, it may be inferred, q money-bor-
rover from the start. fBy the term is
meant exactly what it cOnveys-a fellow
who always bOrrows, but never returns,
and has no intention of returning.) He
may be seif-indulgent and incOnsiderate i;
but he is, if not honest, at least not posi-
lively dishonest at the outset. He seeks,
at first, temporary accommodation, and,
though willing others should take the risk
OF their loans, his purpose is to pay on an
early occasion, or at least when convent
ent. He does return what he borrows for
a while; but he finds, ere long, that he
cannot redeem mis- promises. and that it is.
moreover, SO much easier to deceive and
lie. so much pleasanter Ito him) to get
money than to pay it back, that the per-
nicious habit becomes fixed. He steadily
goes from indirectiOn and prevarication to
unblushing falsehood and premeditated
swindling. His moral consciousness
grows more and more planted as he con-
dnues to prey upon the careless or the
credulous. After a certain apprenticeship
to the nefarious trade, he does with delib-
Grafton what, in the beginning. he would
have believed himself Incapable of under
any circumstances. He comes to consid-
er what he has managed to borrow in the
past as his rightful income in the future.
Nothing can be more degra ling than
this practice, for any time continued. 1t
fastens itself upon, becomes a part of the
Cheracter-nOt to be cured, not to be ex-
PEELED, not to be alleviated by any power
resident in the brain or conscience. AL
belt not SO debasing Outwardly, nor so
hurtful to thu mind as incompetence, it is
more insidiOus and more tenacious. Hab-
itual intoxication is such an alarming ex-
tremity, there is likely to be some reac-
ton from it, and there is a persistent eff
fort on the part of relatives and friends
to drag drunkard out of the slough into
which he has fallen. Instances of re-
formed inebriates are very common, as
they are of reformed rakes, reformed
gamblers, reformed rogues of divers
sorts; but the examples of professional
their calling, while there was penny to
be had by ingenious knavery, are too in
frequent for citation. Money-borrowing
becomes by long indulgence a passion
that destroys the moral perceptions ex-
tinguishes the quality of industry oblit-
crates every notion of individual right
and personal property. On this last rest
soOth: hence, he who disregards right
and property habitually is self-declared
outlaw-an enemy, in the craftiest. and,
therefore, the most dangerous form, of
the whole body of society.
Many borrowers are made, and continue
to be such, from vicious courses but
even when these are surrendered, the bor-
rowing, which was a consequence, goes
on as an Independent cause, producing
new and still worse effects. To owe
money that the over might pay if he
WOULD leaves a faint in the blood, an
Obliquity in the mind that neither medi-
cine nor ethics can reach. The borrower
soon finds his Indebtedness so far beyond
his present and prospective means of
liquidation that he sinks to a state of fl
nanciai desperation, and henceforward is
reckless and shameless in his confidential
plundering. The main mischief is that
he does not take from those who can af-
ford to lose, nor from those who have
gotten easily the sums they lend. -Feb'u-
arg !Scri5ner.