St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1885-06-27
FALSE ECONOMY.

/
Writer from the Pacific Slope Who
Knows What He Is Writing About.
Seek the poorest for economy's sake.
Live on the cheapest. Dress cheaply.
Get yourself cheap lodgings where
CRIME and squalor prevail.
BY 50 doing you will put on the atmos-
phere of poverty as you do your over
coat and carry it with you as one of the
signs revealing the very condition you
want and need to conceal. Poverty
will drive most people from You. They
are afraid of you. They feel in your
presence the possible request OF ''Lend
me dollar for few days.
This ought not to be so. But it is SO
This is not homily on fancies but one
| on facts.
There is quite as much reckless saving
in this world as reckless spending. AS
when . man walks three or four miles
to save fare, and thereby walks the
strength out of mind and body. that he
needed for some important purpose.
That's one Of the ways Of keeping poor.
Take care of your pence in taking good
care of yourself aud keeping body and
| mind in the best condition, and not in
ramming every nickel your fist closes
over down a rat hole, while you suffer
and weaken for what it could buy
think real poverty means starving
ones self OF the good things Of this
world or being starved for lack of them,
as you please. There's law for cult
waiting this sort Of poverty as fixed in its
working q the law which carries the
errth around the sun. Make up your
mind that you won't abide this sort of
poverty and SO act as opportunities pre-
sent themselves, and see if elements
and agencies do not come to you to help
you enjoy life as you live. Only there
is presumed on your part sufficient sense
to know such elements and agencies and
also to know how to use them.
Who are the rich? A man with
million may live feeling as ''poor as
poverty" scared half to death every
time he takes out his pocketbook for
necessary outlay; distressing himself by
the hour with the thought that his last
purchase of dollars worth at one shop
might have been secured for ninety
cents at another; starving his stomach
with indigestible ten-cent lunches and
studying what he calls ''economy' until
economy has turned into miserliness.
Another man buys what he needs,
treats himself to the best he can find and
afford. treats his body to decent food and
clothing and gets lots of good out Of
them as he goes along.
Which is the richer of the two?
What do you want? To feel miserably
poor all your days on earth that you may
so die 'poor IS poverty" though worth
the million you have scraped together
through starving your body, starving
your tastes. scrimping. cheese-paring
and living in such dread of poverty that
you have become q money boarding
monomaniac. distressed by the money
gripes every time you open your purse
for q car fare.
Go unshaven to-day to'save the bar
ber's fee. and you feel unshaven and I'M
presentable. That is the very day you
will meet the man on whom you desire
to make favorable impression. and who
may take stock of your stubby beard
and Judge You thereby. Buy the cheaper
shoes or the cheaper coat or hat to save
. few dollars, and you buy 80 many
cheap signs which will let you out and
keep you out of the class who might be
most useful to you, as you might in turn
also be to them.
A man bred to miserly morality and
stuffed full in his youth of Ben Franklin's
maxims provocative of economical starv-
alton, went to strange place in search
of business, having in his pocket 800.
For economy sake he put up at third
class hotel, where grease and rancidity
made him half-sick and sallow. For
economy's sake he kept on wearing a
suit of clothes verging on seediness.
when an expenditure of $40 on apparel
would have made him outwardly q
far more presentable person. Week |
after week he grew outwardly |
more seedy and inwardly more sick.
and further from the situation he sought.
for his clothes and his third rate bear
ing and address. coming of stopping at
a third-rate hotel, enveloped him with a
third-rate atmosphere and created for |
him with others third-rate impression.
So his hundred dollars dwindled and |
dwindled away on this basis of economy
until he could not purchase new suit |
of clothes, while those he wore became |
daily less and less presentable. As he |
became less presentable he had less and |
less face to present himself to the kind |
of people most necessary for him to
seek.
The second man coming to the same
place on a similar errand chose better
though more expensive lodgings and
thereby got himself among and was
seen of men among q more respectable
class of people. He, also, had but 500
in the world, but when he saw in his
clothing signs of wear and tear and
more coming, he said to himself: If
buy me a fifty dollar suit of clothing,
though get nothing to do. shall have
the apparel. anyway, and that's better
business basis to stand on than . seedy
suit"
Ask any man of the world which of
the two was most likely to get along"
and make his way.
Take care OF the pence and the
pounds will take care of themselves"
says your careful old man of money.
True! But are You taking care Of the
pence when for economy's sake you
dose yourself with the dirt and rancid
ty Of q slop-dish restaurant? Are you
laking care of yourself? Won't poor