Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-11-02
Lies Charge Account
BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX

cruel. it doesn't matter much which,
since we have to deal with the fact,
not a theory.
You break one of LIES rules to-
day in the serene assurance that be-
cause you are young and vigorous
you can afford to make a little over
draft on your health and strength.
You figure it out something like
this: 1T won't hurt me to go out
IN pumps and thin stockings tonight
and dance until early morning, and
take few drinks, and eat few in
dtgestible messes, and drag through
my work tomorrow more dead than
alive, and be up late tomorrow
| night. I'm young, I can afford to
do that"
But life figures it out something
like this: There's Paul Mason. He's
spending more of his health and
strength than he has right to. He's
eating ridiculous combinations of
food and drinking too heavily. Well.
III charge that up against him every
time he does it, There's no reason
why 1 should send him the bill to-
day. I'll just let the charges accu-
mulate and he can pay in lump
sum-"
Paul Mason runs his bill with life
for fifteen wears. He swells out his
fine chest and struts bit "The rules
are for the weak. precautions for the
sickly, and fear for the UNIT" says
Paul, vauntingly. "Why should 1
worry? I'm a good physical speci-
men,"
Paul, my friend. you owe life lot
that she will collect-and with accu-
mulated interest.
Why do you suppose so many
splendid, strengthening men develop
gout, or sclerosis of the liver, or
other diseases almost as unpleasant
to spell and name as to endure? Too
many men crumple up suddenly
middle life. Kind friends call it over
work, or brain fag; but Nature, smil-
ing inexorably. says, mo, he's just
paying up for what the indulgent
world calls youthful follies' or good
time I was a patient creditor, but
here I am and I'm going to be paid"
few years ago a really notorious
woman married a handsome young
multimillionaire. She had been core
spondent in a lurid divorce case by
the time she was eighteen, figure in
an international scandal a year or
two later, one of the most conspicu-
Gus favorites of Broadway before she
was twenty-five - and then the mis-
tress of millions and an unassailable
sociar position in spite of it all.
See all she got away with?" cried
some young girls whose lot is hard,
and a few bitter women.
so you think she's going to get off
without paying?" said I. well, we
won't go into the fact that she may
be perfectly miserable in her own
soul. and bitterly conscious of the
creature who has taken her happi-
ness so ruthlesly all along the line.
in Il fY,er
stole her husband from another
woman.
"She has always let other people
pay fT her pleasures--and you girls
envy her VIII you envy her as much
even to-day when tell you that the
man she has married is a hopeless
drunkard? Will you envy her at all,
a. few years from now, when Nature
begins to send in her bill?
To-day Beauty. who broke all the
laws of Nature and man and Goo
within seeming impunity. is meeting
scorn all decent women feel for a
pay with. Her looks went. and the
world beagn scorning her and sneer-
ing at her. Her health couldn't meet
the overdrafts she had always made.
Her weakened moral fiber didn't
stand out against cheap temptations
Her husband divorced her-for cause.
To-day she is an outcast-old at
thirty.
Nature isn't kind. She is more in
cXorable even than man-made JUS
tice; she sends in her bills with ac-
crued interest and demands full pay
ment on them.
The next time you find yourself
tempted to draw heavily no your own
stock of health or decency or happi-
ness, stop and figure a minute. Do
you want to wait twenty years. per-
haps, and then pay a hundredfold?
Foolish overindulgence in rich food
to-day-grippe and a months sick
ness may descend upon you a week
from now.
Pumps and thin silk stockings all
winter-perhaps the bill won't be
her bills. She hasn't much left to
presented for six months or a year.
then it may be in terms of the great
white plague. tuberculosis.
Have you ever been in a restaurant
where there were no prices marked
against the foods? You were a little
frightened to order, weren't you?
You like to know what things are
going to cost.
Well, Nature has no price tag. You
never know what you are going to be
asked to pay. But whatever the
charge against you is, you will be
compelled to meet 1.-THE unknown
price of to-day's youthful folly"