Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1873-07-25
CuriOsities of Economy.

1t is quite in the natural order of things
that some people should be habitually
economical and others habitually extrava-
CANT. Pecularities of mental and moral
constitution bring this state of things
about, and these are greatly helped some
times by circumstances. People who must
economiZe learn to do it whether their
tendencies are in that direction or not,
and people whose early training has
! taught them thrift are aptto practice it even
after it ceases to be necessary. With all
these things we are familiar, and so we
do not think of them. But in this matter
of saving, as in almost everything else, &C.
centricity finds room to show itself very
curiously sometimes. We once knew a
| gentleman whose generosity and utter un.
| selishness led him to many eXtrava-
| gancIes which, even with his considera-
BILE wealth, he could i'll afford. There
was no Ostentation in his living, and yet
! his living was enormously expensive.
Whatever his family might posi-
| bly, enjoy he procured. His house
was constantly filled with relatives
poorer than he. The church to which
| he belonged drew nearly half its
revenue from his purse. His poor neigh.
bOrs thought him very prince of gener-
osity; and well they might, for whenever
they were over-pressed, and needed more
| laborers than they could afford TO hire, he
was sure to discover the fact, and to give
them lift with his whole farm force. To
do generous things was a part of him, and
the cost OF doing them never entered his
mind. He was extravagant simply because
he could never learn to regard money as of
any value. And yetthis man had one habit
of economy There was just one thing
which he carefully saved, and that was
| paper. When he wrote letter, he would
carefully tear off and put away whatever
| remained of the sheet, even when it was a
| strip only an inch wide When he re-
ceived letter. his first care was to save
whatever blank paper there might be at
tached to it. He made no use of these
| strips. When he wanted to make a mem.
Orandum, or write a brief receipt, he
would begin at the top of foolscap sheet,
though his desk was full of slips varying
| in size from half a sheet to mere scraps.
| 1t was not in him to make any real saw
| ing. His chronic extravaganza made him
take fresh sheet when a scrap would
have done quite as well, and his one in
stinct of economy was fully satisfied by
the tearing off and boarding of all posi-
bic margins.
This mania for saving paper is not an
| uncommon one. A celebrated English
author, who was not noted for economy
in any other direction, was a very miser
in the matter of paper. His manuscript
was written so closely that the printers
could hardly make anything of 1t, and 1t
was written, too, on all sorts of scraps.
Margins of newspapers, old wrappers, the
brown paper in which his shopman sent
home parcels, all these served him for
writing paper. His printers thought to
| secure more agreeable manuscript by pro.
viding him indirectly supply of good
| paper, and so in sending his proofs to him
| they wrapped them in good foolscap; but
the paper. miser thought this altogether
too good to be used, and laid it away
while he continued to write on unseemly
scraps.
But paper is not the only thing prized
by special economists of this kind. We
know a wealthy man whose table is al
ways abundantly supplied with the bes
of everything with the solitary exception
of beetsteaks. He is especially fond o
beefsteak too, but he will not allow hi;
serving-man to order any of the choicel
cuts for broiling. He thinks it wholly
unwarrantable extravaganza to pay two
cents pound extra for loin-steaks wheI
he can get on well enough with those Gu
from the round This would seem rea
sonable enough if it were part of sys
TEN, but the beefsteak-saying is his only
economy.
Enforced economy sometimes become
so far chronic as to last long after the ne
cessity for practicing it has passed away
When Lord Eldon was poor Jack Scott
and had made runaway marriage witt
no money in hand or in prospect, his no
BILE wife pinched and screwed their join
expenses into the smallest possible com
pass, and the habit thus acquired stuck I,
her even after her husband had becom
Lord High Chancellor with an inCom
much greater than he knew how to use
and 1t is said that he was actually afrait
to take her into society or to invite guest
TO his house lest she should mortify hin
by some manifestation of her stinginess
She would neither dress herself tOlerabl
nor set proper number of dishes on he
table, and her other housekeeping a.
rangements were equally pinched in thei
character. The story is commonly tol
J to her discredit; but when we reflect tina
all this stinginess was but the result {
her brave and loyal fight for her husband
success in the world, we bow our head
in recognition of her nobility far NOR
= heartily than we render our tribute of n
spect to the Lord Chancellor who, in tn
prosperity which she had helped I
bring to him,was ashamed of her.-Hedrt
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