Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1901-07-27

| aquandering for a duchess. What may
be economical for you, a man with
larger income, will be wicked waste
| for me, with smaller income. There is
no iron rule on this subject. Every
man before God and on his knees must
| judge what is extravaganza, and when
a man goes into expenditures beyond
his means he is extrayagant.
Meeting Ones Obligations.
| Of course sometimes men are flung
| of misfortunes and they cannot pay. 1
know men who are just as honest in
having failed as other men are honest
in succeeding. 1 suppose there is hardly
man who has gone through life but
there have been some times when he
has been hurt of misfortune he
could not meet his obligations, but all
that l put aside. There are a multi
tude of people who buy that which
they never intend to pay for, for which
there is no reasonable expectation they
will ever be able to pay. Now, if you
have become oblivious of honesty and
mean to defraud, why not save the
merchant as much as you can? Why
not go some day to his store and when
nobody is looking just shoulder a ham
or the spareib and in modest silence
steal away? That would be less GRIM
'inal, because in the other way you
take not only the mans goods, but you
tame the time of the merchant and the
time of his accountant, and you take
the time of the messenger who brought
you the goods. Now, if you must steal,
steal in a way to do as little damage
to the trader as possible.
John Randolph arose in the Ameri-
can senate when a question of national
finance was being discussed, and,
stretching himself to his full height,
in a shrill voice he cried out, "Mr.
Chairman, 1 have discovered the phil
osopher's stone, which turns every
thing into gold-pay as you go!" So
ciety has got to be reconstructed on
this subject or the seasons of defalca-
ton will continue to repeat themselves.
You have no right to ride in a carriage
for which you are hopelessly in debt to
the wheelwright who furnished the
landau. and to the horse dealer who
provided the blooded span, and to the
harness maker who caprisoned the gay
steeds, and to the 1iveryman who has
provided the stabling, and to the driv-
er, gho, with rosetted hat, sits on the
coach box
Oh, am so glad it is not the abso-
lutte necessities of life which send peo-
pie out into dishonesties and fling
them into misfortunes. 1t is almost
always the superfiuities. God has
promised us a house, but not palace;
raiment. but not chinchilla; food, but
not canvasback duck. 1 am yet to see
one of these great defalcations which
is not connected in some way with
extravaganza.
Extravaganza accounts for the dis
turbance of national finances. Aggre-
cations are made up of units, and
when one-half of the people of this
country owe the other half how can
we expect financial prosperity? Again
and again at the national election we
have had a spasm of virtue, and we
said, 'Out with one administration
and in with another and let us have
a new deal of things and then we will
get over our perturbation" / do not
care who is president or who is sec
retary of the treasury or how much
breadstuffs go out of the country or
how much gold is imported until we
learn to pay our debts and it becomes
a general theory in this country that
men must buy no more than they can
pay for. Until that time comes there
at the pernicious extravaganza. Take
the one fact that New York every
year pays So 200, 900 for theatrical
amusements. While once in while a
Henry Irving or an Edwin Booth or a
Joseph jefferson thrills great audi
ence with tragedy, you know well
as 1 do that the vast majority of the
theaters are as debased as debased they
can be. as unclean as unclean they can
be and as damnable as damnable they
can be. Three million dollars, the vast
majority of those dollars going in the
wrong direction
Harmful AMI Unnece<sary Expense.
Over a hundred millions paid in this
country for cigars and tobacco a year.
About 81. 1000. 900, 600 paid for strong
drink in one year in this country.
With such extravaganza, pernicious
extravaganza can there be any perma-
nent prosperity? Business men. cool
headed business men, is such a thing a
possibility? These extravagances a so
the positive. crimes, the forgeries, the
abscondings of the officers of the banks.
The store on the business street
swamped by the residence on the fash
-ionable avenue. The fathers, the hus-
bands craft capsized by carrying too
much domestic sail. That is what
springs the leak in the merchants
money till That is what cracks the
pistols of the suicides That is what