The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-12-09
Ta FINANCES tF
 OF ENGLISH YOUTH And Embarrassm6nts Csrsed at Eton and 0xfcrd
 Collegoa.
  IA SUFFEkEa& COMPLAINT The Boys Have Fso Little Money ana Too Guch
 Expense.

1000 pounds q year., three-quarters earned and the other quarter unearned, was, except in very rare cases, tn 0 most unhappy of paupers. He had an income which tempted him into style of daily life and a fashion of amusement just beyond his means, while at the same time he was re- garded as a legitimate object of plund- CT by all organizers of bazaars and charity matinees Hence, discomfort for everybody and deficit in the fam fly budget.
 A struggling pauper of this kind has one sound plan for elpding trou- ble. He pays his rent, household ex- penses, club subscriptions, ehauffeur's, wages, and other claims which are thrust aggressively before him, in full and immediately; teroporizes with but finally pays in full the allowances of bis wife and daughters and all the cost of their arnusernents; and econ onizes severely in all claims excluding his sons allowances at Oxford and Al dershot, which arc made dihldently anl from afar off
 The pocket money of boys at Eton, winchester and Harrow and the al- iowances of lads at oxford and Cam bridge, most of whose fathers are re- trenching sternly for one reason or another, are accordingly about two- thirds of what they used to, be. How lnnany of the schoolboys in the seven principal public schools in this coun- ltry have a fixed allowance of pocket money per annurn or per term at all, land even among those how many have ltheir money paid tn them regularly and without asking for 1t To some parents 1t seems to be consolation for Ithe annoyance of paving their sons lpocket money to compel them to ask Isor the money at the beginning of each Eton or Oxford term, and then to be- gin series of fractious, pointless louestions: What on earth has hap lpened to al that money which you had last January?' DO you really warlt more at once?" What do you do with it all?"
 Who has not seen some youth sit ting with downcast eyes and set r1is- larable face under one of these 1nan-
 cial cross ss-exanlinations perfectly just lly saving to himself that If he had been expected to keep and show ar account of the money he ought tt lhave been told so, and that If tht . amount Is too large he ought not tc
 have been given 1t at first. havi
 known dozens of young men at oxfort
 who. well on in term time, in It's thirt
 or fourth week. would say with a sig
 that they really must sit lovn anf
 dun" their father for the terms al
 lowance; they have "hung on" with
 out 1t as long as possible, and psi
 lively must have it now. h Hthe
 words. they have run, up bills in town
 allowed college bills to run on owe their proper time, and possibly I some cases borrowed few s'vereigH from tailors. scouts and even friends merely because, an ill-tampsred an' profoundly unbusinesslike man VII not pay what he has proniisca to pa at its proper time and the boy has no courage to ask for 1t.
 School pocket money Is called a \ act of grace; since, beyond 'ew sue II scriptions there isa it is said, no objct II far which a schoolboy is p3sltivel II bound to have pocket rnoney But Wn Il send your boy to sch ] ,l where eS Il erybody else has got cert1il ltiXnrfe Il stch as ample pocket money, if 70 Il do not mean to let him live the aroir N iarv life of the school7' Occasioi'a. Il man sends his son to an eXponsiV Il public school for the sentimental ret II son that he has been .hers nir1sel H but nine times out of ten the boys 6 \ to their fathers school because th IF father is too idle to look for a fl1oi Il suitable one, and in that case the D Il is under no obligations whatever U make himself uncomf ,rtab!e by goin
 without pocket money. There Is a int Idifm in all things. Two ooys "f n p acquaintance whose fathers send tle' I blank check at the beginning \ leach term to be filled up 1t cis7.'tio
 are possibly unduly favored. But th ! majority of schoolboys nowadays ar \ treated with extraordinary neannes
 and stupidity in the matter of pookt ! money
 | Stinginess or bad judgment on tn ! part of men with sons at Oxford an ! Cambridge is a more serious mater, [ have rarely in my life met n,oi
 miserable lad than young friend
 mine who was sent to Christ churc \ with an allowance of t5o pounds ] year He tried for a scholarship | course but failed, and ought to haN
 gone to one of the numerous atht
 colleges provided for mon If sue ! means But his grandfather and fatl CT had been to the II juse," and } "the House" he must go ateorllng)
 and live almost entirely surrounded S men with double, quadruple and tc ! times his income.
 ! The experience is not an agreeae ] one in London or Paris, where vol tidoinss pass almost unnoticed. In O iford, except to an unusually strcn Slminded, philosophic youth, it is am IIintolerable Young msn are poll
 and considerate in such cases, on tl
 whole, but naturally they are ignora
 as to how much can ani cannot done on certain, incomes M 'fcovt { the "bounder" Is not quite an U
 known person at oxford, and his pi
 pr4cks hurt a good deal moro in u
 small company and small space. ''Po
 srty," says derrasn proverb wFi
 must have been devised by . Heid, berg youth in such circumstances,
 tnn4 a crirnet if ia ten finaes worse