Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1878-08-22
Does II Pay!

ways paid one hundred cents on the dol
lar, says the times are so bad he can not
go on much longer, and fears he must
make some settlement with his creditors
Curiosity led us to have little chat with
him about his debts and personal. habits
with a view to some suggestions we
thought wise to make. Our friend is a
perfectly sober, industrious man. No one
ever saw him worse for liquor. He is an
indulgent husband and father, and in all
respects good citizen. But during all
this period he has been steady, moder-
ate drinker and smoker. Once in the morn
ing and generally twice before bed time
he has taken his drink. Two, three and
four cigars day have been moderate al
lowance for his wishes, and all the time
he had thus been gratifying his tastes, the
expense of SO doing never seemed to him
of the slightest Importance. .
He admitted that during thirty years
the average sum paid by him for whisky,
beer and tobacco would amount to half a
dollar per day, and on being questioned,
said he cared little for either luxury
that smoking and drinking were nasty
habits, and he would have been just as
happy without them. Taking his own
pencil, he found by his own statement,
which probably did not cover more than
half the realesum, that he had expended
S., $40 for whisky and tobacco, not cal
culating the interest on the money, which
would long since have doubled the amount
His entire present Indebtedness, was less
than So 900, for which he holds goods of
larger nominal value. Had he saved the
whisky and tobacco money, he would
now be an entirely Independent man, and
the world for him would be prosperous
and satisfactory. All the steady profits
he had made in thirty years of hard la
bor-an average sum of so cents day
he had expended thoughtlessly and reck-
Iessly.
Is there no lesson in such a story?
Our New England fathers after life time
of honorable labor, felt that unusual sue
cess crowned their efforts, if when they
came to die, they left behind an unen-
numbered estate worth from Sc, 900 to
$4,000. But these men lived frugal, care
ful lives, maintained themselves, educated
their children, sustained the schools and
christian charities, endowed colleges, es-
tablished missions, built churches, all
from small personal savings. It is said
that nine tenths of all the money raised.
New England for the great
charities of the churches, are paid by men
and women worth less than 10000.
But our prudent forefathers would nev-
er have secured a competency out of the
rough soil of New England except by the
practice Of rigid and systematic economy.
Had they allowed themselves to waste
half a dollar day for beer, whisky and
tobacco, poverty would have been their
certain portion, and New England would
have known no thrift, and the story of
their usefulness would never have been
written. .-s-.-. .
The truth must be told over again:
Americans of to-day are the most se1f-iI5E
dulgent and extravagant people on the
face of the globe. There is a strange lack
of moral sense among a large class of
them. Hundreds of men ignore honest
debts, yet indulge daily in habits of per-
sonal extravaganza that, under the cir
cumstances, are criminal. Rigid economy
and abstinence from luxuries with which
they have no business, would in time save
enough to pay, or fairly compromise, their
debts, but it never occurs to them that
duty and honor and decency demand it
should be done. Speak to one of them
who is daily expending for drink and to-
baccO sum in which the yearly aggre-
gate is sufficient to clOthe comfortably all
his children, and the angry reply would
be that that was his business, or a man
the habits of man in debt are matters
which creditors have the right to COM
plain of, because their qualification is
paid for not by himself, but by them.
The people of the German, Swiss, Rus
sia and French nations appear to enjoy
themselves as we'll as our own. They
smoke, drink, dance and sing as much as
we do. But generally light, cheap wine
or beer satisfies the palate, and long pipe
the smoker. The cost of one high-priced
cigar daily smoked by all classes in this
country, would buy in any other country
tobacco to satisfy a smoker a week.
The days have gone by when rapid for
tunes can be made as during the war.
Hereafter the process of accommodating
property must go on slowly and steadily,
little by little. Men who are striving to
secure a competency for their families
must live prudently and economically,
like our New England ancestors and the
men who founded the Western Reserve
Men who are not rich must have moral
courage enough to do so and not live as
though they were.
The saving and laying aside of one dol
| lar per day put at interest will, in TWEEN
| ty-five years, make any family comforta
| BILE and independent. Why will not eul
young men see this? Why squandeI
/ money on habits absolutely injurious t.
/ mind and body, that which in the enc
would secure independence for them
| selves and families, or yearly provide
| them with comforts, or means of educa-
ton, which will, in the end, aid them il
the coming life struggle?
| We again ask: Does it pay? Does i
pay to spend the certain earnings of al
| industrious life in smoking and drink
| ing and near its close find yourself bank
rupt in fortune, and your families thrown
helpless upon the world? If not, it il
| never too late to mend.
| The New York Times says that 'Sena
| tor Thurnman's own case is an instance
| of how perilOus it is to lodge the regula'
| tions of the finances with the Legislature
With clear perception of the evils o
irredeemable paper money, with far clea
er comprehcnsions than most of his fel
Iow-Iegislators of the immense abuses t.
which such money gives rise, he has grad
ualIy been driven to an equivOcal posi-
tion on the question, has gradually sur
rendered himself to the dictates of tn
widest, most ignorant, and most de