Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1873-03-22
NOME EcoyoxT-pRTvAr re HABITS.

honesty in private affairs, suicides, failures
in business, and the general complaint of
meagre pay and profits, are attributable
in some degree to the private habits and
home economy Of our people. Children
that are taught at home wholesome re-
spect for law and order usually make law
abiding, orderly citizens. When Spencer
was standing upon the gallows with the
rope about his neck, for the murder of
Warden Tinker, he said that lie COM
menced his career of crime by being dis
orderly at school, What is the great les
son taught in our homes? Is itnot to get
money or position? To Guido our neigh
bors in style? To be smart to look out
for the main chance, disregarding princi-
pie, and reckless who sinks or by what
means if we only swim?
that cashiers become defaulters, clerks
steal. members Of Congress cheat or buy
a seat in the Senate, or that suicides
abound and poorhouses and prisons are
filed. If this teaching is not general
there is altogether too much Of it, so that
it poisons the public sentiment. All over
the country its effects are witnessed. here
in murder. there in robbery, elsewhere in
shortlived extravaganza ending in pauper-
perism, and whole communities grumb-
ling at their condition.
xhatr al.
I've honest in their dealings, manly in all
their conduct, to live within their means,
to leave smoking. drinking and gambling
to idiots. to respect the Sabbath and the
institutions peculiar to it, and enforce
their teaching by a fitting example of
their own, there would be less crime and
misery In the world. The single habit Of
smoking may make the difference in q
lifetime that lies between the poorhouse
and comfortable provision for old age
What ruin intemperance will accomplish
every body knows. The insidious sappine
Of the character by teaching that over
reaching In trade. lying and cheating ir
business, are smart and commendable
and the way to success, is fatal to the sub
jects of it. Thousands of young married
men and women think when they start ii
life they must have an expensive house
furnished In style, with table to CORE.
spond. and perhaps horse and carriage
They fancy they must have these or they
will not be considered respectable. And
all this is to be supported with small
income, thousand dollars salary it may
be, but oftener less than more. The inev-
liable consequence is that such persons
find it impossible to pay their bills. The
year rolls around and they are in debt.
To improve their condition they change
their quarters to some other town or city,
or seek in questionable, if not criminal
modes of life, to maintain the extrava-
gance with which they started, and SO
they sink deeper and deeper in the mire
into which one false step at the beginning
plunges them.
It is dishonest principle which encour-
ages young or old to spend more than
they earn for living, if by prudence they
can pay their bills. The responsibility
which is based on fine house and fine
clothes, while the tailor, grocer, butcher,
milliner and dry goods dealer are obliged
TO dun and 60 unpaid until starvation or
failure looks them in the face, is spurious
and not very lasting. The honest man in
plain clothes, who occupies an humble
tenement, but pays his bills promptly is
much more respectable. In the long run
he is the man who accumulates property.
His little savings from year to year
amount to considerable sum in series
of years. The true rule is to pay as you
go, and make expenditure less than in
come. There are many young persons
who say they cannot afford to get mar.
ried because of the cost of keeping house,
but il is only such as are too weak and
foolish to trust to loving wife, health
and economy. rs aids to a livelihood
Young men can support the expenses Of
housekeeping better than the generation
before US could
The actual expenses Of good living
and comfortable home are within tho
means of any industrious young married
couple. 1t is the luxuries and extrava
gance of housekeeping which cost. ant
he who thinks more of these than hap
Ply home. honor. and the competenc.
which follows good habits and honest prin
ciples, might as well remain single.
five would check the tide of crime an,
misery let us inculcate at home the prin
ciples of honesty in private and public al
fairs, and the necessity of stunning evi
habits and base company. We fear tina
the neglect to do this is bearing evil frui
now. The tone of society has become de
based. The standard of morality is no
as high as 1t should be. Every man ant
woman can do something by UNFOLDING
the right and opposing the wrong to bring
about correction, and this they should do
pou;p tho uvcrL NJ hoyuo and the effect