Year: 1877

WHAT 1T COSTS.


Those who commit crime seldom look
at more than one side of the balance
sheet. Satan always shows the gilded
side of sin, and that side only, when he
tempts men and when they are drawn
away by their own lusts, they take into
account only the profit they hope to de-
rive from an evil course. How otherwise
could SO many intelligent men cover
themselves with disgrace and plunge
their families into sea of wretchedness
for the doubtful enjoyment of ill-gotten
gains. We wish every young man, and
every old man as well. could examine
the following balance sheet drawn up by
the New York Evemiag Post. It is the
result of the forgeries committed by
VIM. G. Gilman of that city, which re-
Gently came to light:


"He has gained, at most. one or two
hundred thousand of dollars-not a great
fortune by any means, even if it had
been honestly earned and could be open
ly enjoyed, and a mean and paltry sum
with which to sneak away into some
obscure hiding place and drag out the
existence of hunted felon. This is
the sum total of the credit side of his
profit and loss account.


The debit side makes a much larger
showing. He has lost, in the first place,
an honored name in the world-a name
which he inherited from his father and
which he had kept in honor for years a
name which was of priceless worth, and
one which, estimated by purely pecu-
mary standard, was good in bank and
on the street for more than the sum that
he has carried away with him. He has
lost, in the second place, his own self
respect, and must henceforth know him.
self as felon. He has lost his liberty,
too; for whether he shall be caught by
the police and thrown into prison for his
misdeeds, or shall escape the vigilance
of the laws officers, he is henceforth
without that liberty of action which
alone makes life worth living; he must
run and hide; he may not write his
name upon inn registers, or proclaim it
to his fellow-men; he cannot live in his
native land nor can he safely travel in
any civilized country; he must hide as
the hunted haru dvos, l;-;-s +h4 LIFE Af
capture must be perpetually present as a
hideous nightmare, from which the dawn
brings no relief. He has lost, beside,
his family. A wife and children were
his, but they are his no longer. He is
shut out forever from the home that he
had made for himself His wife and
children were dear to him doubtless, but
he can see their faces no more forever /;
he has sold them for money. Worse
still, he has done them irrepairable wrong.
They must suffer for the wrong that he
has done, punishment infinitely severer
than the worst penalty that the law pre-
scribes for such offences as his. He has
brought upon them a calamity worse
than death, loss greater than bank
ruptcy could have brought. Those young
children of his had right to one inner.
itance his good name was an entailed
property which belonged to them and
was held by him in trust. He has de-
stroyed it forever, leaving them infinitely
poorer than they would have been had
he wasted their uttermost substance
leaving them penniless in the streets
Money he might have regained for them
and they might have got it for them
selves; that good name is lost pas
recovery.


When we thus cast up the profit anC
loss account of the misdoer, it seems in
credible that any man of business, know


ing as every business man does the grea
: value of an honest reputation, shoul
D ever be so blind to his own selfish inter


ests-to leave all moral questions out o
6 the account-as to listen for momen


to the whispers of temptation"