St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-01-14
The Debts of 1881.

The pretty sentimental fluttering
over the country this morning of New
Years cards, and calls and greetings. is
very well in its way but after all and
under all, as every one of us knows,
this is the day of duns. The fiend of
the yellow envelope is abroad in the
land. Young people and lovers may
find sweet prophecies in the veice of
the newcomer that rode haste
across the waste last night, but to us
who are older all he has to say is, "Can
you pay up?'
The man among us who has no bills
to pay to-day is Il white elephant in
the herd, sacred in virtue. Salaried
men form so large proportion of every
community, and the credit system so
broadly underlies all trade, that it is
well-nigh impossible to carry on a
household or business on a strictly
cash basis. 1t is much more difficult
for respectable man to escape credit
than to get it in a city. From his doc
tor to his butcher everybody has insist
ed upon trusting him during 1880, and
now they all pOunce on him together,
demanding payment.
OF course we believe every reader of
the Tribune will pay up if he can (the
preacher always has faith in the hon
esty of his congregation, or why should
they have chosen him as their oracle p,
or if he cannot pay he will resolve
during the humiliations and miseries of
the next month never to run up anoth-
er bill. We dismiss him to his virtue
or his remorse with the brief reminder
that there are debts which he must pay
during the coming year which money
will not cover. 1t is not enough that
he is not an actual dead d-head and seal
awag that, as he iogS along in the
crowd, he does not filch from this man
his house, or from another his clothes
or coal or cigars without paying any
equivalent therefor. He owes to each
man in the crowd-fiIst, elbOw-room.
Because he has acquired certain
amount of money or nOtoriety, or what
he chooses to consider social rank, he
has no right to wrap those bulky i'm
pediments about him, like the wadded
armOr of Chinaman, to obstruct the
highway and thrust unhampered and
probably better men into the gutter.
He may have the blood of the Howards
and million in his pocket, and his
black neighbOr not penny: but Opin-
ions, tastes, the chances of sovereignty,
a share of the world, in short, belong
just as much to one as the other. You
have no right to swagger along the
road, saying, 81 am richer or redder
bloOded or better bred than these 9th
ers." And in just as much as you do
1t, whoever you are, you make yourself
a public nuisance. Neither have YOU
any more right to thrust your miseries
or defects into view. A certain amount
of wholesome cheerfulness belongs to
the public just as do the sunshine and
pure air, and a man owes it to his
neighbors to keep his mental and phys
ical diseases out of sight as he does to
keep his drains clean. The men of
genius or the members of family who
perpetually are laying bare their men
tai sores are in the same category as
the beggaT who uncOvers his defOrmity
in the roadside. For the same reason
you owe not only decent respect but
courtesy to your fellow travellers. If
a kind word and CHEEKY smile will help
your wife or friend or servant to carry
her load more easily. and God furnish
ed you with a month and voice to give
them, it is a debt due from you to them
not a favor. Every man, in short, owes
his quota toward making the world
pleasanter and warmer, and the sour.
grumpish fellow who chills the air with
his spite and sarcasm is only a bad
debtor. dodging payment of his dues.
Something also you owe to Yourself
this New Years morning. Self-respect;
when you have that you will not be
afraid of heinO n1trOnized Or trodden
upon; you will be neither snobbishly
servile nor cOnceited in manner; no
matter what your birth or station, when
you look upon your fellow-men only
as brothers whom you can probably
help upon their way, you will escape
vulgarity and gain real good breeding.
You owe it to yourself, too, to keep
yourself clean, not only in body, bnt 10
soul. You started ont in the begianing
temperate, chaste, kindly, just as you