The Clifton clarion., 1889-07-31
CHRONIC BORROWERS.
Re. citations by Lady Writer Who Seems
 to Know All About Them.

to Know All About Them.
 If you are buying house in neighborhood unknown to you, you will naturally ask all kinds of ques- tions. You will want to know if the drainage is good, if the air is pure, if there has ever been malaria, how far it is to the depot and postoiIice, but ten to one you don't inquire if there are any borrowers in the neighborhood.
 Now, chronic borrower is deadly nuisance in community. 4 woman whois is always just out" of saleratus will stir up more trouble in neigh bor hood than mad dog and flock of fifteen hens and rooster.
 She will run in on you at any and all hours, and want to borrow just little sugar, or spice, till she can send to the grocer's She really did not know she was anywhere near out till she went about her cooking, and then she found she hadn't dust of sugar in the house, and not a soul around anywhere that she could sent out after any.
 And she will tell you that she does so hate to trouble you; for if there IS anything on earth she dislikes to do it is to borrow-and she never does it when she can help it; but now her pie crust Is all on the plates, and she was obliged to, because she could not spare the time 10 run to the grocer's. And sine will si! down in your kitchen and stop half an hour, and talk about everybody in town; and, meanwhile, she will take an account of every thing her eyes fali on, and she will see behind your stove the cobwebs that you forgot to brush down this morn ing; and she will notice the old boots that your husband left on the wood box to dry, and she will see that your lamp chimneys have not been washed, and that your dishes are in the sink, and that you had ham for breakfast by the spatter of grease on the stove; and when she goes into some other neighbor's house on a borrowing eXpe- dition she will give q report of what she saw in your kitchen, and swear the neighbor over to eternal secrecy regarding it; and the consequence will be that in a week it will be all overtown that your folks live on ham, and that you are the most untidy housekeepar on the footstool.
 When the borrower returns what she borrows it is always in a little small CT measure, if, indeed, she returns it at all And you may congratulate yourself if you get half what belongs to you.
 X regular borrower will borrow everything, from a piece of salt fish for breakfast down to your boy, if you have one.
 The book borrower is even greater nuisance than the woman who bOrrows household supplies. She never hesi tates to ask for the choicest or coStli- est books in your house. And she seems to think that she confers favor on you by so asking.
 And if you are fool enough 10 lend, the possibility is that you will have to go after the books in question, and will fild on doing so that she has lent them to some friend of hers, who wanted to read them, and she will tell you that she knew you would be will ing-you are so good natured. In course of our life we have been asked to lend everything in the book line that ever we owned, except our Bible, and somehow nobody ever seemed to care about borrowing that, and ill nine cases out of ten when we have complied our literature has come back to us in shape that fitted it only for kindling-if, indeed, we were lucky enough ever to set eyes on 1t.
 So we say 10 all our friends, if it be possible to avoid it, never have bor- rower for q neighbor.-New York Weekly.