Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1901-06-21
GETTING INTO DEBT.
sophfstrtes OF the Credit system Thas
Lead Young Persons Into
Trouble.

The desire to live beyond their
means-to have better food, better
houses, better furniture and better
clothes than they can afford-seems
to be increasing among our people.
To meet this growing demand there
has come into being the credit sys-
tenn, which is responsible for much
unhappiness and misery, says Susan
Brown Robbins, in Ladies' world,
New York.
A young couple decide to marry.
Both have been earning and have a
little saved. They think that as long
as they will never be married but
once" they may as well do it in
style" So they hire a better tene-
ment than they need, furnish it with
installment furniture, buy fashiona-
bic clothing. give an expensive we'd
ding costly gifts from friends,
that will have to be paid back in the
future-and then they take a short
wedding trip.
They come home, and the young
husband goes to work. Only one is
earning now, and somehow or other
the living expenses are larger than
they expected. They have not learned
to economic, and before long the
ms tallments come due and they be-
gin to fall behind in their pay
ments.
So, what with rent, coal bills, gro
Gerry bills, and payments the chap
Ply couple" find themselves swamped
in small debts. They must either take
in sail at once, or become more and
more involved. One of two things
will eventually take place: They will
degenerate into dead BEATS" to be
talked about and cursed by the butch
er, the baker and the candlestick
maker; or they will begin to learn
economy and strive to get honestly
out of their difficulties. With such
a start, and with the habit of debt
established, it will be years before
they can begin anew, and it is more
than likely that they will go on as
they began, owing little bills here,
there and everywhere. This is not
only wrong to themselves, but to
their children if they have any. We
all know of prematurely old and
careworn children who, at an early
age, are weighed down with the fam
lily debts or the mortgage.
Now if this couple in the first place
had done little figuring, they must
have seen that they were undertake
ing too much. Then if they had made
home according to their means, fur
nished modestly, and had started the
new life free from debt, years o.
worry and despair would have been
saved.
''But I like pretty things and
want a pleasant home,'' walls the
bride-elect
Do you want it furnished with pref
ty things that do not belong to you?
Cheap furniture-that is paid for will
seem more beautiful in the long run
than oak and mahogany on which one
is continually being nagged to make
payments.
1t is one of the sophistries of the
credit system that one can have the
use of the articles while they are be-
ing paid for. This sounds well; but
does a person of fine feelings like to
use things which belong to some one.
else-especially when the owner may
take them away after they have been
partly paid for? There is a Joy in
the full possession of even common
things.
Much of the misery for which debt
is responsible. might be prevented if
only parents would teach their chill
dren to shun it as they would a pest
Hence. PUTT to them that it is a
form of cheating. Even if they mean
to pay. they are using what Goes not
belong to them. Show them that
debt and dishonesty are near akin,
and that one should be avoided as
much as the other