Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-04-02
RUNNING IN DEBT.
Don't Do 1t If You Wish to BE Happy an
Resuected.


Respected.
SAYS Douglas Jerrold: "Of what hide
Gus progeny is debt the father! What
lies, what meanness what invasions Of
self-respect, what cares, what double
dealing! How, in due season, it will
carve the frank, open face into wrinkles;
how, like knife. it will stab the honest
heart
Aman has no business tolive In style
which his income can not support, or to
mortgage his earnings of next week or
OF next year, in order to live luxuri-
ously to-day. The whole system Of
debt, by means of which we forestall
and anticipate the future, is wrong.
They are almost as much TO blame who
give credit, and encourage customers to
take credit, as those are who incur
debts. man knows what his actual
position is if he pays as he goes. He
can keep within his means, and so ap-
portion his expenditures as to reserve a
fund of savings against a time of need.
He is always balanced up; and if he
buys nothing but what he pays for in
cash, he can not fail to be on the credit
side OF his household accounts at the
years end.
But once let him commence the prac-
tice of running up bills, and he never
knows how he stands. He is deceived
into debt; the road is made smooth and
pleasant for him; things flow into the
house for which he does not seem to
pay. But they are all set down against
him; and at the years end, when the
bills come up, he is ready to lift up his
hands in dismay. Then he finds that
the sweet of the honey will not repay
for the smart of the sting.
Men OF genius are equally facile in
running into debt. Genius has no neces-
sary connection with prudence or self
constraint, or does it exercise any infin-
ence over the common rules of arith-
metic which are rigid and infiexible
Men of genius are often superior to
what Bacon calls Tho wisdom of bust
ness" Yet Bacon himself did not follow
his own advice, but was ruined by his
lmprovidence. He was in straits and
difficulties when youth, and IN still
greater straits and difficulties when a
man. His life was splendid; but his
excessive expenditure involved him in
debts which created perpetual craving
for money. One day, in passing out to
his ante-chambers, where HIS followers
waited for his appearance, he said, BE
seated, my masters your rise has been
my fall" TO supply his wants, Bacon
took brides, and was thereupon beset
by his enemies, convicted, degraded
and ruined.
From his sad experience no one could
speak with greater authority on the
subject of debt than Jonson. do not
accustom yourself, he wrote to Bos-
we'll, Ito consider debt only an incon-
Venience; you will find it a calamity
Let it be your first care not to be in any
mans debt Whatever you have, spend
less. Frugality is not only the basis of
quiet, but of benefcence." To Simpson,
the barrister, he wrote, "Small debts
are like small shot; they are rafting on
every side, and can scarcely be escaped
without wound great debts are like
cannon, of loud noise, but little danger
You must therefore be enabled to dis
charge petty debts, that you may have
leisure, with security, to struggle with
the rest" Sir" said he to the patient
and receptive Boswell, get as much
peace of mind as you can, and keep
within your income, and you won't go
far wrong Maxwell Frazer, LII D.,
in Once q Week