The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1877-05-10
TWO GBElr GLASSES or PEOPLE
THE Rich AND POOH.

Whatever else happens to the peo
pie OF this world, it is probable that
they will always be divided by money
J into two great classes. It is not like
ly, indeed, that even the millennium
will do away with the distinction be
tween rich and poor.
, Within certain narrow limits peO.
/ pie are estimated st their real worth,
] and to s certsin extent, people, like
water, find their level in this world
; But the extent Is very narrow. It not
seldom happens that the fools pop uI
/ 70 the top, and the wise people sinh
to the bottom. Circumstances, more
than people are willing to believe, de-
, termine who shall be the ricn and
, who the poor, who the successful and
VINO the despairing.
Successful people-thst is, rich pe0-
. pie, in the sense in which the world
measures sueeess,-like to think they
owe their success to themselves. They
. like to fancy some inherent superior
!. ity of their own caused fortune to
smile on them while she frowned on
the men beside them. In nine cases
out Of ten it Is not 80. Worldly sue-
cess i5 more q matter OF mere circum-
stance than OF anything else. What
had Johnny Steele, the silly young
bOOr who squandered several millions
in four years, done to deserve the mil
lions in the first place? What, in
deed, had his ancestors before him
done to deserve them And in stock
gambling, wnen sudden event
which no human being could have
fOretold, happens some fine morning,
and bankrupts one rascal, while it
makes 3 millionaire OF the rascal next
to him; what has the millionaire
rascal done more than the bankrupt
rascal, to deserve fortune? ? A and B
are two poor jOurneymen cobblers,
not first-class cObblers either, who
come West from Connecticut, IN
ksearch of fortune. They settle alike
In swamps, perhaps forty miles apart.
CObbIer AS swamp becomes the site
Of Cincinnati, or st. Louis, or Chicago
and his grand children become the
grandees OF the land-Hold families, I"
you know. CObbler BIS barns burn
down, his family are mildeWed with
ague, and ratified and burnt to death
with chills and fevers, and his de-
Iscendants die in the county poor
house. If CObbler a had turned q
few miles to the right or left, or IL
Cobbler B mad stopped at the swamp
which was to be Chicago, or CIncIn-
uati, or st. Louis, BIS grandchildren
would have been the first families,
and AS would have died in the coun-
ty pOor-house. 1t almost happened
so, and it would have happened so
but for the merest untoward eireum-
stances, q rain-storm, msyhap, or
even a fallen tree, or an accident to q
hOrse's foot.
Now, why should CObbler AS
grandchildren put on airs over the
grandchildren OF Cobbler BIS ?
"SIeeping or walking, we hear not the
airy footsteps OF tue things that
almost happen" says Hawthorne.
"The airy footsteps of the things that
almost happen" passed poor CObbler
b by the merest chance. Nothing
tnat he could have done would have
changed their course, though CJbbIer
B was q better man than CObbler A.
pened to strike CObbler A instead of
CObbler B. That was all. It could
have been nothing else.
So, somehow, never see q pomp-
Gus rich man putting on airs but l
can't help saying to myself, sit might
Just as well have been your hOstler in
stead of you, for anything you have
done or deserved. The wheel OF for
tune might have turned hairs
breadth further, and q better man
would have stood in your place. !"
Somehow, too, for the same reason,
whenever 1 see rich woman in her
Jewels and rattling silks, passing
without q word Of recognition ladies
whose good clothes she was glad to
borrow when she was poor, for my
life can not help imagining myself
asking her: because your husband
happened to have lot of whisky on
hand when the war broke out, does
that make you, the woman, really
any better than you were before
With all the airs you assume over
your old neighbors, you know you
haven't reached the highest social
point yet. You know you would give
one of your two eyes to be on terms Of
perfect social equality with Mrs.
Seven-Up. But you never can. Mrs.
Seven-Up's grandfather was a gamb-
Ter, and won q farm st poker one
night. A great city came and settled
on the farm, and Mrs. Seven-Up be-
longs to one of the rich old families of
America. You can never reach Mrs.
Seven.Up's side on the ladder--never.
In America, 1 understand "high-
toned" people to mean people who
put on airs over people who are poor
er than themselves. 1t stands to rea-
son, in the first place, that everybody
who was rich and comfortable in the
old world would naturally stay there,
and that the average emigrant to
America was either a poor mechanic
or tradesmen who wished to better his
condition, or man who had done
something which made the old coun-
try too hot to hold him. In either
case, his posterity certainly have very
/ little to put on airs about.
1 have seen these pestiferous first
family representives, sometimes go
ing to and fro, up and down the arth,
and feeble enough they are apt to be.
In most cases they are are small-tOp-
ped, bieached-OuE sprouts Of what
was once a stout old family tree, strik-
ing its roots far down into the earth,
and drawing strength from it, buffet
ing with the elements and standing
up sturdy and robust. But the sprouts
degenerate. The human race would
return to monkeydom II it depended
on American rich mems sons and
daughters for its perpetuatiOn.
And when in my wanderings l see
these useless additions TO humanity,
feeble OF brain and feeble Of arm,
aping foreign ways and treating poor
men like dogs, and, as far as they
dare. In America, treating working
men and women worse than dog5,-it
is one of the times when l don't know
English enough to speak my mind.
The great underlying fact OF humani-
| ty is that, il man is honest, refined
| in his manners, and takes his baths
] often and thoroughly, that man is
gentleman, though he scrspes streets
| for q living. / have seen very few
American rich mems sons and daugh-
| ters with intellects clear enough to
recognize this fact. Fortunately, IN.
der our republican arrangements,
s'oId families" soon run out in this
country. Estates are not entsiled,
and the idle, mediocre children of
rich men speedily squander their an
| cestOr's wealth and sink to their
proper level, and somebody gets the
| money who earned ii. II Is q good
thing for this country that it is so.
It is astonishing, too, how the poor
devils who have got rich snub the
poor devils who haven't got rich. 1t
is astonishing, l say, TO see how apt
successful rich men are to turn into
selfish, dried-up old sticks, indifferent
alike to God, man and old Nick. II
the Almighty Himself were to come
down in the guise of poor man who
wanted work or advice, and visit
good many rich men 1 know, they
would keep him standing outside the
back door in the rain till they finished
their bottle OF wine and their game OF
cards, and then they'd send him word
they had no time to see him. Fact.
For some unknown reason, success
ful rich men, who might make any
number of people happy, merely by
giving them little sympathy and
moral eneOuragement-thes success
full rich men are apt to be the most
selfish ard stuck-up of mortals.
They may have been in their youth,
and many OF them doubtless were, so
poor they didn't sometimes know
where the next dinner was to come
/ a