The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-01-31
BY RUTH CAMERON.

Il have gambled more or less all
my life, but it never got the better OF
me but once a newspaper man said
to me the other day. And that once
men who had a good deal more mon
ey than 1. They were real estate
men. My business threw me in with
them for a few months, and during
that time spent more money on
cards than I had a right to-but that
was the only time"
No, don't be scared. This isn't to
be a preachment against the danger
of gam bling-simply a few words
against what seems to me the greater
danger of getting in with crowd"
that has more money than you do.
1t wasn't the gambling that got that
man.
1t was simply the desire to live up
to financial standard that was too
high for him.
do not believe that any f1ve-dollar
| man, unless he has unusual strength
of character, can be thrown constant
ly with ffty-dollar people and not
yield occasionally to the temptation
to spend as they do.
In some one of his books Charles
| Dickens says that: If you earn fifty
pounds a year and spend forty-nine
pounds and nineteen shillingS you can
be happy, but if you make fifty
pounds year and spend fifty pounds
and one shilling, you are pretty apt
| to be very unhappy.
True enough, except that no matter
how carefully you keep your expen-
ditures within that fifty pounds
doubt if you will be happy if you as
sociate too constantly with people
who earn hundred pounds.
In the town where I was brought up
there lives a soured woman for whom
| few even of the most tolerant folk
! have a good word.
She nr1fx dor Of q
owner of a small shop, who made per-
| haps $1,000 or $4,000 a year.
She was pretty girl. Her mother
was clever woman and ambitious
| managed to place themselves in the
set of the five and ten and fifteen
| thousand dollar-a-year people.
When the daughters of these fam
! lilies finished high school they went to
one of the most expensive colleges.
wise, of course.
And as far as history relates all
went we'll with her until the middle
of her second college year, when a
slip of yellow paper summoned her
home one day rather rudely.
| Weighed down by the burden of
| his wife's and daughters attempts to
live at a ten thousand dollar rate on
a two thousand dollar income, her
/ father had failed in business, and
| dSHdSl DIT Tie OIL
his daughters education. had COM
mitted suicide so that she might fin
| ish it with his life insurance.
This is not a wild surmise. He stat
ed his purpose very explicitly and
alphabetically in a note, the contents
| of which somehow or other leaked
| out.
| And, furthermore, that girl actually
| took the money and calmly went
about completing her education.
But she had gone toe" far. The
friends for whom she had done this
| fell away from her-as such friends
have a way of doing. That was fifteen
years ago, but her name is still a
household word of i'll repute. Her
shame is still a village tradition.
1t is splendid to have so strong a
| character that one is never in the
least swayed by the financial stand
ards of those about him.
But since the average person does
not have such character, it seems to
me that he will probably be better off
If he makes it plan to travel for
4 the most part with the people of his
own financial plane.
| In all likelihood he will find just as
nice and interesting and refined peo-
| pie in that plane as in the next high
Grand infinitely more peace of mind
| in their society.