Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1877-11-09
Property and Income.

Property and Income.
The custom we have in the Republic of
reckoning mans means by his property, in
stead of his income, is unsatisfactory as it is
misleading. In the Old World we hear very lit
tie of what man owns though we may infer
the amount from its productiveness. An
Englishman has so many pounds IA French
man so many francs an Italian so many lire ;
German so many marks, year but the
income of an American is seldom mentioned
He is always spoken of as worth a certain
sum, which may be in Government securities,
real estate, merchandise, defaulted railroad
Londs, non-paying stocks, or wild lands. His
annual income may be $50, 600, 10000, So
900, $500, or nothing at all and yet his prop
erty, in any case, is set down at definite fig
ure Real value does not consist in what We
own, but in what we derive from ownership,
especially since every prudent man depends
not on his capital, but on the interest derived
from its investment.
A pesudo-pio person once boosted of the
treasures he had laid up in heaven to an ir-
reverent listener, who declared that on earth
they must yield very poor income. The
same might be said of the earthly treasures
that many people talk of possessing. They
are represented as large in amount and rich in
prospect; but the possessors get no apparent
benefit from them. They may be tangible
enough they may be comprehended in un-
improved real estate, in unrentable houses, in
deprecated securities, in protested bills-re-
ceivable-all of which will be perfectly good
some day, though, for the nonce they are val
ueless. A great deal of the perfectly-good-
some-day property is owned in this country,
particularly in the West but it is conspicu-
ousy ineffective as respects power of purchase
or source of subsistence In every State of
the Union millions of this sort of wealth are
held, and will be held till doomsday. One of
its peculiarities is that it is always on the eve
of appreciation, and that capitalists would
snap it up at once if they knew their own in
terest. Capitalists, by the bye, who are pop
ularly supposed to be extremely shrewd, are,
in all instances of this kind supremacy stupid
and absolutely incapable of enlightenment
During the last four years any number of
our citizens have had, and still have on hand,
sound property that is not available. but must
be ere long 1t should not be COMPOUNDED
with the estates that are shadowy, that exist
on paper, that are to have high price in the
undated future. Nevertheless, it is unfair to
represent them at what they have been worth,
or will likely be worth again. For the pres
ent, they are little more than nominal in val
ne, and are worth Mt best only what they
would bring if put on the market. 1t is easy
enough to see why their owners are unwilling
to submit to a reduced estimate and yet it
can be very little satisfaction to them to be
speak of. Americans who used to spend $780,
900 and $50, 600 year and still kept within
their means have recently thought themselves
lucky to get $40, 600 from all sources. Fam
lilies hitherto in luxurious circumstances have
found it hard to live with strict economy.
ALI these should be rated by their income.
Such rating might make them feel poor: but
it is better to feel poor when one is poor tina l
to feel rich when one is not rich. Computa-
ton by income is wholesome and corrective.
1t prevents people from vainly regretting
their financial prosperity in the past, or from
equally vain longing for a renewed prosperity
in the future. 1t confines them to the pres
ent, and in the present alone good sense and
discretion abide. No doubt much anxiety,
worry, and mental suffering would have been
saved in all our towns and cities, these four
years past, if income had been considered the
measure of pecuniary means. 1t is the only
true standard the only prudent, safe and
strictly honest one. Property without pro
portionate income, is property in the abstract
cannot be counted on, and is apt to prove
wearing and wounding by the perpetual dis.
appointments and miscalculations which il
causes.
As a rule Americans live in the future, fol
their land is land of the future, and they
are prone to defer their worthiest living to a
time always in advance. They do not like &c
be cramped by serious consideration of the
present therefore they have no fancy for be
ing reckoned by incomes which restrict then
energies and expectations to a twelvemonth
The grandly possible is what they love to con
template. They want to behold with theil
minds eye their % per cent stock 90 to POO
their paper towns rise into crowded streets
and busy capitals, their theoretic mines teen
with the richest ores. To estimate their prop
erty very literally seems and sounds so much
larger than to name their actual income, thai
they are averse to the latter, which, while il
may reduce them to comparative poverty, re
ports their financial condition Alright. If they
were accustomed to regard their income mere
ly they would be far less likely to spend wha
they have not got, and incur expenses they
cannot afford. To live according to income
is to live within ones means, and to live with
in ones means is the basis of all pecuniary in
dependence.
When we have learned to rate ourselves by
income or by real earnings, which is substan
tally the same, our tendency to over-trading
to abuse of the credit system, to promiscuoui
extravaganza, will be curtaled, if not positive
ly checked. Business men will understand
one another and be subject to much fewe
losses in their dealings when they declar,
what their last years profits have been, il
lieu of what their general prospects may be
With such declaration, the periodic panics
reverses, and revolutions TO which we hav
been accustomed will become less common
and less disastrous, and the whole tone o
commercial life can scarcely fail to improve
Now that we are mending so many of on
loose financial ways and getting nearer AM
nearer to a solid foundation for transaction
of all kinds, this would seem to be an excel
lent time TO begin to represent mems resource
not by liberal estimates and vague prospects
but by actual income or earnings, which, be
ing fixed facts, can be dealt with as such