The Project Gutenberg Etext of Words for the Wise, by T.S. Arthur
#13 in our series by T.S. Arthur

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg file.

We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your own disk,
thereby keeping an electronic path open for future readers.

Please do not remove this.

This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to
view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission.
The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information
they need to understand what they may and may not do with the etext.
To encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end,
rather than having it all here at the beginning.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These Etexts Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****

Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and
further information, is included below.  We need your donations.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3)
organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541
Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file.



Title: Words for the Wise

Author: T.S. Arthur

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

Release Date: November, 2003 [Etext #4618]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on February 20, 2002]

The Project Gutenberg Etext of Words for the Wise, by T.S. Arthur
******This file should be named wrdsw10.txt or wrdsw10.zip******

Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, wrdsw11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, wrdsw10a.txt

This etext was created by Charles Aldarondo (Aldarondo@yahoo.com)


Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition.

The "legal small print" and other information about this book
may now be found at the end of this file.  Please read this
important information, as it gives you specific rights and
tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used.










WORDS FOR THE WISE.

BY T. S. ARTHUR.

PHILADELPHIA:

1851.






PREFACE.





THE title of this book--"WORDS FOR THE WISE"--is too comprehensive
to need explanation. May the lessons it teaches be "sufficient" as
warnings, incentives and examples, to hundreds and thousands who
read them.






CONTENTS.





THE POOR DEBTOR
THE SUNDAY CHRISTIAN
I KNEW HOW IT WOULD BE
JACOB JONES; OR, THE MAN WHO COULDN'T GET ALONG IN THE WORLD
STARTING A NEWSPAPER. AN EXPERIENCE OF MR. JONES
THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS
JUST GOING TO DO IT
MAKING HASTE TO BE RICH
LET HER POUT IT OUT
A FINE, GENEROUS FELLOW
TAKING IT FOR GRANTED
LOVE AND LAW






WORDS FOR THE WISE.

THE POOR DEBTOR.





"THERE is one honest man in the world, I am happy to say," remarked
a rich merchant, named Petron, to a friend who happened to call in
upon him.

"Is there, indeed! I am glad to find you have made a discovery of
the fact. Who is the individual entitled to the honourable
distinction?"

"You know Moale, the tailor?"

"Yes. Poor fellow! he's been under the weather for a long time."

"I know. But he's an honest man for all that."

"I never doubted his being honest, Mr. Petron."

"I have reason to know that he is. But I once thought differently.
When he was broken up in business some years ago, he owed me a
little bill, which I tried to get out of him as hard as any one ever
did try for his own. But I dunned and dunned him until weary, and
then, giving him up as a bad case, passed the trifle that he owed me
to account of profit and loss. He has crossed my path a few times
since; but, as I didn't feel toward him as I could wish to feel
toward all men, I treated him with marked coldness. I am sorry for
having done so, for it now appears that I judged him too severely.
This morning he called in of his own free will, and paid me down the
old account. He didn't say any thing about interest, nor did I,
though I am entitled to, and ought to have received it. But, as long
as he came forward of his own accord and settled his bill, after I
had given up all hope of ever receiving it, I thought I might afford
to be a little generous and not say any thing about the interest;
and so I gave him a receipt in full. Didn't I do right?"

"In what respect?" asked the friend.

"In forgiving him the interest, which I might have claimed as well
as not, and which he would, no doubt, have paid down, or brought me
at some future time."

"Oh, yes. You were right to forgive the interest," returned the
friend, but in a tone and with a manner that struck the merchant as
rather singular. "No man should ever take interest on money due from
an unfortunate debtor."

"Indeed! Why not?" Mr. Petron looked surprised. "Is not money always
worth its interest?"

"So it is said. But the poor debtor has no money upon which to make
an interest. He begins the world again with nothing but his ability
to work; and, if saddled with an old debt--principal and
interest--his case is hopeless. Suppose he owes ten thousand
dollars, and, after struggling hard for three or four years, gets
into a position that will enable him to pay off a thousand dollars a
year. There is some chance for him to get out of debt in ten years.
But suppose interest has been accumulating at the rate of some six
hundred dollars a year. His debt, instead of being ten thousand,
will have increased to over twelve thousand dollars by the time he
is in a condition to begin to pay off any thing; and then, instead
of being able to reduce the amount a thousand dollars a year, he
will have to let six hundred go for the annual interest on the
original debt. Four years would have to elapse before, under this
system, he would get his debt down to where it was when he was
broken up in business. Thus, at the end of eight years' hard
struggling, he would not, really, have advanced a step out of his
difficulties. A debt of ten thousand dollars would still be hanging
over him. And if, persevering to the end, he should go on paying the
interest regularly and reducing the principal, some twenty-five
years of his life would be spent in getting free from debt, when
little over half that time would have been required, if his
creditors had, acting from the commonest dictates of humanity,
voluntarily released the interest."

"That is a new view of the case, I must confess--at least new to
me," said Mr. Petron.

"It is the humane view of the case. But, looking to interest alone,
it is the best view for every creditor to take. Many a man who, with
a little effort, might have cancelled, in time, the principal of a
debt unfortunately standing against him, becomes disheartened at
seeing it daily growing larger through the accumulation of interest,
and gives up in despair. The desire to be free from debt spurs many
a man into effort. But make the difficulties in his way so large as
to appear insurmountable, and he will fold his hands in helpless
inactivity. Thousands of dollars are lost every year in consequence
of creditors grasping after too much, and breaking down the hope and
energy of the debtors."

"Perhaps you are right," said Mr. Petron;--"that view of the case
never presented itself to my mind. I don't suppose, however, the
interest on fifty dollars would have broken down Moale."

"There is no telling. It is the last pound, you know, that breaks
the camel's back. Five years have passed since his day of
misfortune. Fifteen dollars for interest are therefore due. I have
my doubts if he could have paid you sixty-five dollars now. Indeed,
I am sure he could not. And the thought of that as a new debt, for
which he had received no benefit whatever, would, it is more than
probable, have produced a discouraged state of mind, and made him
resolve not to pay you any thing at all."

"But that wouldn't have been honest," said the merchant.

"Perhaps not, strictly speaking. To be dishonest is from a set
purpose to defraud; to take from another what belongs to him; or to
withhold from another, when ability exists to pay, what is justly
his due. You would hardly have placed Moale in either of these
positions, if, from the pressure of the circumstances surrounding
him as a poor man and in debt, he had failed to be as active,
industrious, and prudent as he would otherwise have been. We are all
apt to require too much of the poor debtor, and to have too little
sympathy with him. Let the hope of improving your own
condition--which is the mainspring of all your business
operations--be taken away, and instead, let there be only the desire
to pay off old debts through great labour and self-denial, that must
continue for years, and imagine how differently you would think and
feel from what you do now. Nay, more; let the debt be owed to those
who are worth their thousands and tens of a thousands, and who are
in the enjoyment of every luxury and comfort they could desire,
while you go on paying them what you owe, by over-exertion and the
denial to yourself and family of all those little luxuries and
recreations which both so much need, and then say how deeply dyed
would be that dishonesty which would cause you, in a moment of
darker and deeper discouragement than usual, to throw the crushing
weight from your shoulders, and resolve to bear it no longer? You
must leave a man some hope in life if you would keep him active and
industrious in his sphere."

Mr. Petron said nothing in reply to this; but he looked sober. His
friend soon after left.

The merchant, as the reader may infer from his own acknowledgment,
was one of those men whose tendency to regard only their own
interests has become so confirmed a habit, that they can see nothing
beyond the narrow circle of self. Upon debtors he had never looked
with a particle of sympathy; and had, in all cases, exacted his own
as rigidly as if his debtor had not been a creature of human wants
and feelings. What had just been said, however, awakened a new
thought in his mind; and, as he reflected upon the subject, he saw
that there was some reason in what had been said, and felt half
ashamed of his allusion to the interest of the tailor's fifty-dollar
debt.

Not long after, a person came into his store, and from some cause
mentioned the name of Moale.

"He's an honest man--that I am ready to say of him," remarked Mr.
Petron.

"Honest, but very poor," was replied.

"He's doing well now, I believe," said the merchant.

"He's managing to keep soul and body together, and hardly that."

"He's paying off his old debts."

"I know he is; but I blame him for injuring his health and wronging
his family, in order to pay a few hundred dollars to men a thousand
times better off in the world than he is. He brought me twenty
dollars on an old debt yesterday, but I wouldn't touch it. His
misfortunes had long ago cancelled the obligation in my eyes. God
forbid! that with enough to spare, I should take the bread out of
the mouths of a poor man's children."

"Is he so very poor?" asked Mr. Petron, surprised and rebuked at
what he heard.

"He has a family of six children to feed, clothe, and educate; and
he has it to do by his unassisted labour. Since he was broken up in
business some years ago, he has had great difficulties to contend
with, and only by pinching himself and family, and depriving both of
nearly every comfort, has he been able to reduce the old claims that
have been standing against him. But he has shortened his own life
ten years thereby, and has deprived his children of the benefits of
education, except in an extremely limited degree--wrongs that are
irreparable. I honour his stern integrity of character, but think
that he has carried his ideas of honesty too far. God gave him these
children, and they have claims upon him for earthly comforts and
blessings to the extent of his ability to provide. His misfortunes
he could not prevent, and they were sent as much for the
chastisement of those who lost by him as they were for his own. If,
subsequently, his greatest exertion was not sufficient to provide
more than ordinary comforts for the family still dependent upon him,
his first duty was to see that they did not want. If he could not
pay his old debts without injury to his health or wrong to his
family, he was under no obligation to pay them; for it is clear,
that no claims upon us are so imperative as to require us to wrong
others in order to satisfy them."

Here was another new doctrine for the ears of the merchant--doctrine
strange, as well as new. He did not feel quite so comfortable as
before about the recovered debt of fifty dollars. The money still
lay upon his desk. He had not yet entered it upon his cash-book, and
he felt now less inclined to do so than ever. The claims of
humanity, in the abstract, pressed themselves upon him for
consideration, and he saw that they were not to be lightly thrust
aside.

In order to pay the fifty dollars, which had been long due to the
merchant, Mr. Moale had, as alleged, denied himself and family at
every point, and overworked himself to a degree seriously injurious
to his health; but his heart felt lighter after the sense of
obligation was removed.

There was little at home, however, to make him feel cheerful. His
wife, not feeling able to hire a domestic, was worn down with the
care and labour of her large family; the children were, as a
necessary consequence, neglected both in minds and bodies. Alas!
there was no sunshine in the poor man's dwelling.

"Well, Alice," said Mr. Moale, as his wife came and stood by the
board upon which he sat at work, holding her babe in her arms, "I
have paid off another debt, thank heaven?"

"Whose?"

"Petron's. He believed me a rogue and treated me as such. I hope he
thinks differently now."

"I wish all men were as honest in their intentions as you are."

"So do I, Alice. The world would be a much better one than it is, I
am thinking."

"And yet, William," said his wife, "I sometimes think we do wrong to
sacrifice so much to get out of debt. Our children"--

"Alice," spoke up the tailor, quickly, "I would almost sell my body
into slavery to get free from debt. When I think of what I still
owe, I feel as if I would suffocate."

"I know how badly you feel about it, William; but your heart is
honest, and should not that reflection bear you up?"

"What is an honest heart without an honest hand, Alice?" replied the
tailor, bending still to his work.

"The honest heart is the main thing, William; God looks at that. Man
judges only of the action, but God sees the heart and its purposes."

"But what is the purpose without the act?"

"It is all that is required, where no ability to act is given.
William, God does not demand of any one impossibilities."

"Though man often does," said the tailor, bitterly.

There was a pause, broken, at length, by the wife, who said--"And
have you really determined to put John and Henry out to trades? They
are so young."

"I know they are, Alice; too young to leave home. But"--

The tailor's voice became unsteady; he broke off in the middle of
the sentence.

"Necessity requires it to be done," he said, recovering himself;
"and it is of no avail to give way to unmanly weakness. But for this
old debt, we might have been comfortable enough, and able to keep
our children around us until they were of a more fitting age to go
from under their parents' roof. Oh, what a curse is debt!"

"There is more yet to pay?"

"Yes, several hundreds of dollars; but if I fail as I have for a
year past, I will break down before I get through."

"Let us think of our family, William; they have the first claim upon
us. Those to whom money is owed are better off than we are; they
stand in no need of it."

"But is it not justly due, Alice?" inquired the tailor, in a
rebuking voice.

"No more justly due than is food, and raiment, and a _home_ to our
children," replied the tailor's wife, with more than her usual
decision of tone. "God has given us these children, and he will
require an account of the souls committed to our charge. Is not a
human soul of more importance than dollars? A few years, and it will
be out of our power to do our children good; they will grow up, and
bear for ever the marks of neglect and wrong."

"Alice! Alice! for heaven's sake, do not talk in this way!"
exclaimed the tailor, much disturbed.

"William," said the wife, "I am a mother, and a mother's heart can
feel right; nature tells me that it is wrong for us to thrust out
our children before they are old enough to go into the world. Let us
keep them home longer."

"We cannot, and pay off this debt."

"Then let the debt go unpaid for the present. Those to whom it is
owed can receive no harm from waiting; but our children will"--

Just then a man brought in a letter, and, handing it to the tailor,
withdrew. On breaking the seal, Mr. Moale found that it contained
fifty dollars, and read as follows:--

"SIR--Upon reflection, I feel that I ought not to receive from you
the money that was due to me when you became unfortunate some years
ago. I understand that you have a large family, that your health is
not very good, and that you are depriving the one of comforts, and
injuring the other, in endeavouring to pay off your old debts. To
cancel these obligations would be all right--nay, your duty--if you
could do so without neglecting higher and plainer duties. But you
cannot do this, and I cannot receive the money you paid me this
morning. Take it back, and let it be expended in making your family
more comfortable. I have enough, and more than enough for all my
wants, and I will not deprive you of a sum that must be important,
while to me it is of little consequence either as gained or lost.

EDWARD PETRON."

The letter dropped from the tailor's hand; he was overcome with
emotion. His wife, when she understood its purport, burst into
tears.

The merchant's sleep was sweeter that night than it had been for
some time, and so was the sleep of the poor debtor.

The next day Mr. Moale called to see Mr. Petron, to whom, at the
instance of the latter, he gave a full detail of his actual
circumstances. The merchant was touched by his story, and prompted
by true benevolence to aid him in his struggles. He saw most of the
tailor's old creditors, and induced those who had not been paid in
full to voluntarily relinquish their claims, and some of those who
had received money since the poor man's misfortunes, to restore it
as belonging of right to his family. There was not one of these
creditors who did not feel happier by their act of generosity; and
no one can doubt that both the tailor and his family were also
happier. John and Henry were not compelled to leave their home until
they were older and better prepared to endure the privations that
usually attend the boy's first entrance into the world; and help for
the mother in her arduous duties could now be afforded.

No one doubts that the creditor, whose money is not paid to him, has
rights. But too few think of the rights of the poor debtor, who
sinks into obscurity, and often privations, while his heart is
oppressed with a sense of obligations utterly beyond his power to
cancel.






THE SUNDAY CHRISTIAN.





TWO things are required to make a Christian--piety and charity. The
first has relation to worship, and in the last all social duties are
involved. Of the great importance of charity in the Christian
character, some idea may be gained by the pointed question asked by
an apostle--"If you love not your brother whom you have seen, how
can you love God whom you have not seen?" There is no mistaking the
meaning of this. It says, in the plainest language--"Piety without
charity is nothing;" and yet how many thousands and hundreds of
thousands around us expect to get to heaven by Sunday religion
alone! Through the week they reach out their hands for money on the
right and on the left, so eager for its attainment, that little or
no regard is paid to the interests of others; and on Sunday, with a
pious face, they attend church and enter into the most holy acts of
worship, fondly imagining that they can be saved by mere acts of
piety, while no regard for their fellow-man is in their hearts.

Such a man was Brian Rowley. His religion was of so pure a stamp
that it would not bear the world's rough contact, and, therefore, it
was never brought into the world. He left the world to take care of
itself when the Sabbath morning broke; and when the Sabbath morning
closed, he went back into the world to look after his own interests.
Every Sunday he progressed a certain way towards heaven, and then
stood still for a week, in order that he might take proper care of
the dollars and cents.

Business men who had transactions with Mr. Rowley generally kept
their eyes open. If they did not do it at the first operation, they
rarely omitted it afterwards, and for sufficient reason; he was
sharp at making a bargain, and never felt satisfied unless he
obtained some advantage. Men engaged in mercantile pursuits were
looked upon, as a general thing, as ungodly in their lives, and
therefore, in a certain sense, "out-siders." To make good bargains
out of these was only to fight them with their own weapons; and he
was certainly good at such work. In dealing with his brethren of the
same faith he was rather more guarded, and affected a contempt for
carnal things that he did not feel.

We said that the religion of Mr. Rowley did not go beyond the pious
duties of the Sabbath. This must be amended. His piety flowed into
certain benevolent operations of the day; he contributed to the
support of Indian and Foreign Missions, and was one of the managers
on a Tract Board. In the affairs of the Ceylonese and South-Sea
Islanders he took a warm interest, and could talk eloquently about
the heathen.

Not far from Mr. Brian Rowley's place of business was the store of a
man named Lane, whose character had been cast originally in a
different mould. He was not a church-going man, because, as he said,
he didn't want to be "thought a hypocrite." In this he displayed a
weakness. At one time he owned a pew in the same church to which
Rowley was attached, and attended church regularly, although he did
not attach himself to the church, nor receive its ordinances. His
pew was near that of Mr. Rowley, and he had a good opportunity for
observing the peculiar manner in which the latter performed his
devotions. Unfortunately for his good opinion of the pious Sunday
worshipper, they were brought into rather close contact during the
week in matters of business, when Mr. Lane had opportunities of
contrasting his piety and charity. The want of agreement in these
two pre-requisites of a genuine Christian disgusted Lane, and caused
him so much annoyance on Sunday that he finally determined to give
up his pew and remain at home. A disposition to carp at professors
of religion was manifested from this time; the whole were judged by
Rowley as a sample.

One dull day a man named Gregory, a sort of busybody in the
neighbourhood, came into the store of Mr. Lane and said to
him--"What do you think of our friend Rowley? Is he a good
Christian?"

"He's a pretty fair Sunday Christian," replied Lane.

"What is that?" asked the man.

"A hypocrite, to use plain language."

"That's pretty hard talk," said Gregory.

"Do you think so?"

"Yes. When you call a man a hypocrite, you make him out, in my
opinion, about as bad as he can well be."

"Call him a Sunday Christian, then."

"A Sunday Christian?"

"Yes; that is, a man who puts his religion on every Sabbath, as he
does his Sunday coat; and lays it away again carefully on Monday
morning, so that it will receive no injury in every-day contact with
the world."

"I believe with you that Rowley doesn't bring much of his religion
into his business."

"No, nor as much common honesty as would save him from perdition."

"He doesn't expect to be saved by keeping the moral law."

"There'll be a poor chance for him, in my opinion, if he's judged
finally by that code."

"You don't seem to have a very high opinion of our friend Rowley?"

"I own that. I used to go to church; but his pious face was ever
before me, and his psalm-singing ever in my ears. Was it possible to
look at him and not think of his grasping, selfish, overreaching
conduct in all his business transactions through the week? No, it
was not possible for me. And so, in disgust, I gave up my pew, and
haven't been to church since."

The next man whom Gregory met he made the repository of what Lane
had said about Rowley. This person happened to be a member of the
church, and felt scandalized by the remarks. After a little
reflection he concluded to inform Mr. Rowley of the free manner in
which Mr. Lane had spoken of him.

"Called me a hypocrite!" exclaimed the indignant Mr. Rowley, as soon
as he was advised of the free manner in which Mr. Lane had talked
about him.

"So I understand. Gregory was my informant."

Mr. Gregory was called upon, and confirmed the statement. Rowley was
highly indignant, and while the heat of his anger was upon him,
called at the store of Mr. Lane, in company with two members of his
church, who were not at all familiar with his business character,
and, therefore, held him in pretty high estimation as a man of piety
and sincerity.

The moment Mr. Lane saw these three men enter his place of business,
he had a suspicion of their errand.

"Can I have some private conversation with you?" asked Mr. Rowley,
with a countenance as solemn as the grave.

"Certainly," replied Mr. Lane, not the least discomposed. "Walk back
into my counting-room. We shall be entirely alone there. Do you wish
your friends present?"

"I do," was gravely replied; "I brought them for that purpose."

"Walk back, gentlemen," said Lane, as he turned to lead the way.

The four men retired to the little office of the merchant in the
back part of the store. After they were seated, Lane said:

"Well, Mr. Rowley, I am ready to hear what you have to say."

Mr. Rowley cleared his throat two or three times, and then said, in
a voice that indicated a good deal of inward disturbance:

"I understand that you have been making rather free use of my name
of late."

"Indeed! in what way?" Lane was perfectly self-possessed.

"I am told that you went so far as to call me a hypocrite." The
voice of Rowley trembled.

"I said you were a Sunday Christian," replied Lane.

"What do you mean by that?" was peremptorily demanded.

"A man whose religion is a Sunday affair altogether. One who expects
to get to heaven by pious observances and church-goings on the
Sabbath, without being over-particular as to the morality of his
conduct through the week."

"Morality! do you pretend to say that I am an immoral man?" said
Rowley, with much heat.

"Don't get into a passion!" returned Lane, coolly. "That will not
help us at all in this grave matter."

Rowley quivered in every nerve; but the presence of his two brethren
admonished him that a Christian temper was very necessary to be
maintained on the occasion.

"Do you charge me with want of morality?" he said, with less visible
excitement.

"I do,--that is, according to my code of morality."

"Upon what do you base your code?" asked one of the witnesses of
this rather strange interview.

"On the Bible," replied Lane.

"Indeed!" was answered, with some surprise; "on what part of it?"

"On every part. But more particularly that passage in the New
Testament where the whole of the law and the prophets is condensed
in a single passage, enjoining love to our neighbour as well as
God."

Rowley and his friends looked surprised at this remark.

"Explain yourself," said the former, with a knit brow.

"That is easily done. The precept here given, and it comes from the
highest authority, expressly declares, as I understand it, religion
to consist in acting justly toward all men, as well as in pious acts
towards God. If a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how
can he love God whom he hath not seen?"

"Does our brother Rowley deny that?" asked the men present.

"If a man's life is any index to his faith, I would say that he
does," replied Mr. Lane.

A deep crimson overspread the face of Mr. Rowley.

"I didn't expect insult when I came here," said he in a trembling
voice.

"Nor have I offered any," replied Mr. Lane.

"You have thought proper to ask me a number of very pointed
questions, and I have merely answered them according to my views of
truth."

"You make a very sweeping declaration," said one of the friends of
Rowley. "Suppose you give some proof of your assertion?"

"That I can readily do if it is desired."

"I desire it, then," said Rowley.

"Do you remember the five bales of cotton you sold to Peterson?"
inquired Mr. Lane.

Rowley replied that he did, but evinced some uneasiness of manner at
the question.

"They were damaged," said Lane.

"I sold them as I bought them," returned Rowley.

"Did you buy them as damaged?"

"No, I bought the cotton as a good article."

"And sold it as good?"

Mr. Rowley seemed a little confused.

"I sold the cotton at twelve cents a pound," was the reply. "Nothing
was said about the quality."

"Twelve cents is the price of a prime article. If you had been asked
by Peterson if the cotton were in good condition, would you have
answered affirmatively?"

"Do you think I would tell a lie?" asked Mr. Rowley, indignantly.

"Our acts are the most perfect expressions of our intentions,"
replied Mr. Lane. "You were deceived in your purchase of the cotton;
the article proved so near valueless, as not to be really worth
three cents a pound. You discovered this, as I have the best reasons
for knowing, almost as soon as it came into your possession; and yet
you offered it to Peterson, who, not suspecting for a moment that
any thing was wrong, bought it at the regular market-rate as good.
You saved yourself; but Peterson, though not a professor of
religion, was too honest to put his bad bargain off upon another.
Now, if that act, on your part, was loving your neighbour as
yourself, I must own to a very perverted understanding of the sacred
precept. I, though no church member, would have put my head into the
fire rather than do such an act."

Mr. Rowley, much confused by so direct a charge, attempted to
explain the matter away, alleging that he did not think that the
article was so badly damaged--that he sold as he bought--that it
wasn't right that he should bear all the loss, with much more to the
same purpose; to all of which Lane opposed but little. He had
presented the case already strong enough for all to see how far it
comported with Christian morality. But he had more to say:--

"Beyond this, which I bring forward as a specimen of the character
of your dealings with your fellow-men, I could adduce almost
innumerable examples of your indirect and covert modes of obtaining
the advantage in ordinary transactions. You may not be aware of the
fact, Mr. Rowley, but your reputation among business men is that of
a dealer so close to your own side of the bargain as to trench upon
the rights of others. You invariably keep the half cent in giving
change, while you have been repeatedly known to refuse a ten cent
piece and two cents for an elevenpence. In fact, you are known as a
man who invariably seeks to get the best of every transaction. If
this is Christian charity--if this is a just regard for the rights
of your neighbours--if this is in agreement with the spirit of the
Bible, then I have been labouring under a mental delusion. Man of
the world as I am--heathen as you have seemed to regard me, I am
proud to say that I govern my actions from a higher principle. You
now understand, gentlemen," addressing the friends of Rowley, "why I
have called this man a Sunday Christian. It is plain that he expects
to get to heaven by a simple Sunday service of his Maker, while all
the week he pursues gain so eagerly as to thrust other people aside,
and even make his way, so to speak, over their prostrate bodies. I
have no more to say."

Rowley was so much confounded by this unexpected charge, that he was
silent. His own conscience wrote an affirmation of the truth in his
countenance. The men who had come with him arose, and, bowing with
far more respect than when they entered, withdrew, and Rowley went
with them.

There was a change in the pious merchant after this. He conducted
his business with less apparent eagerness to get the best of every
bargain than had been his custom in former times; but whether
influenced by more genuine Christian principles, or by an awakened
love of reputation, it is not for us to say.

It is not by a man's religious profession that the world judges of
his character, but by the quality of his transactions in business
intercourse with his fellow-men. If he be truly religious, it will
be seen here in the justice and judgment of all his business
transactions. If a man be not faithful to his brother, he cannot be
faithful to Heaven.






I KNEW HOW IT WOULD BE.





"HE'LL never succeed!" was the remark of Mr. Hueston, on reference
being made to a young man named Eldridge, who had recently commenced
business.

"Why not?" was asked.

"He's begun wrong."

"In what way?"

"His connection is bad."

"With Dalton?"

"Yes. Dalton is either a knave or a fool. The former, I believe; but
in either case the result will be the same to his partner. Before
two years, unless a miracle takes place, you will see Eldridge, at
least, coming out at the little end of the horn. I could have told
him this at first, but it was none of my business. I never meddle
with things that don't concern me."

"You know Dalton, then?"

"I think I do."

"Has he been in business before?"

"Yes, half a dozen times; and somehow or other, he has always
managed to get out of it, with cash in hand, long enough before it
broke down to escape all odium and responsibility."

"I'm sorry for Eldridge. He's a clever young man, and honest into
the bargain."

"Yes; and he has energy of character and some business talents. But
he is too confiding. And here is just the weakness that will prove
his ruin. He will put too much faith in his plausible associate."

"Some one should warn him of his danger. Were I intimate enough to
venture on the freedom, I would certainly do so."

"I don't meddle myself with other people's affairs. One never gets
any thanks for the trouble he takes on this score. At least, that is
my experience. And, moreover, it's about as much as I can do to take
good care of my own concerns. This is every man's business."

"I wish you had given the young man a word of caution before he was
involved with Dalton."

"I did think of doing so; but then I reflected that it was his
look-out, and not mine. Each man has to cut his eye-teeth for
himself, you know."

"True; but when we see a stumbling-block in the way of a blind man,
or one whose eyes are turned in another direction, we ought at least
to utter a warning word. It seems to me that we owe that much
good-will to our fellows."

"Perhaps we do. And I don't know that it would have been any harm if
I had done as you suggest. However, it is too late now."

"I think not. A hint of the truth would put him on his guard."

"I don't know."

"Oh, yes, it would."

"I am not certain. Dalton is a most plausible man; and I am pretty
sure that, in the mind of a person like Eldridge, he can inspire the
fullest confidence. To suggest any thing wrong, now, would not put
him on his guard, and might lead the suggester into trouble."

Much more was said on both sides, but no good result flowed from the
conversation. Mr. Hueston did not hesitate to declare that he knew
how it would all be in the end; but at the same time said that it
was none of his business, and that "every man must look out for
himself."

The character of Dalton was by no means harshly judged by Mr.
Hueston. He was, at heart, a knave; yet a most cunning and specious
one. Eldridge, on the contrary, was the very soul of integrity; and,
being thoroughly honest in all his intentions, it was hard for him
to believe that any man who spoke fair to him, and professed to be
governed by right principles, could be a scoundrel. With a few
thousand dollars, his share of his father's estate, he had come to
Boston for the purpose of commencing some kind of business. With
creditable prudence, he entered the store of a merchant and remained
there for a year, in order to obtain a practical familiarity with
trade. During this period he fell in with Dalton, who was in a small
commission way that barely yielded him enough to meet his expenses.
Dalton was not long in discovering that Eldridge had some cash, and
that his ultimate intention was to engage in business for himself.
From that time he evinced towards the young man a very friendly
spirit, and soon found a good reason for changing his
boarding-place, and making his home under the same roof with
Eldridge. To win upon the young man's confidence was no hard matter.
Before six months, Dalton was looked upon as a generous-minded
friend, who had his interest deeply at heart. All his views in
regard to business were freely communicated; and he rested upon the
suggestions of Dalton with the confidence of one who believed that
he had met a friend, not only fully competent to advise aright, but
thoroughly unselfish in all his feelings.

Dalton possessed a large amount of business information, and was,
therefore, the very man for Eldridge; particularly as he was
communicative. In conversation, the latter obtained a great deal of
information on subjects especially interesting to one who looked
forward to engaging in some branch of trade for himself. One evening
the two men sat conversing about business, as usual, when Eldridge
said:

"It is time I was making some move for myself; but, for my life, I
can't come to any decision as to what I shall do."

"It is better for a young man, if he can do so, to connect himself
with some established house," replied Dalton to this. "It takes time
to make a new business, and not unfrequently a very long time."

"I am aware of that; but I see no opportunity for an arrangement of
the kind."

"How much capital can you furnish?"

"Ten thousand dollars."

"That's very good, and ought to enable you to make an arrangement
somewhere. I don't know but I might be willing to give you an
interest in my business. This, however, would require some
reflection. I am turning out a very handsome surplus every year,
without at all crowding sail."

"A commission business?"

"Yes. I am agent for three or four manufactories, and effect some
pretty large sales during the year. If I were able to make liberal
cash advances, I could more than quadruple my business."

"And, of course, your profits also?"

"Yes, that follows as a natural result."

"Would ten thousand dollars be at all adequate for such a purpose?"

"It would help very much. Ten thousand dollars in cash is, you know,
a basis of credit to nearly four times that sum."

"Yes, I am aware of that."

"Is your capital readily available?" inquired Dalton.

"Yes, since I have been in the city I have invested every thing in
government securities, as safe property, and readily convertible
into cash."

"Very judicious."

Dalton mused for some time.

"Yes," he at length said, as if he had been thinking seriously of
the effect of ten thousand dollars in his business. "The capital you
have would put a new face on every thing. That's certain. Suppose
you think the matter over, and I will do the same."

"I will, certainly. And I may say now, that there will hardly be any
hinderance on my part to the arrangement, if you should see it to be
advantageous all around."

Of course Mr. Dalton professed, after taking a decent time for
pretended reflection, to see great advantage to all parties in a
business connection, which in due time was formed. But few of those
who knew Eldridge were apprized of what he intended doing, and those
who did know, and were aware at the same time of Mr. Dalton's
character, like Mr. Hueston, concluded to mind their own business.

And so, unwarned of the risk he was encountering, an honest and
confiding young man was permitted to form a copartnership with a
villain, who had already been the means of involving three or four
unsuspecting individuals in hopeless embarrassment.

Confident that he had entered the road to fortune, Eldridge
commenced his new career. The capital he had supplied gave, as
Dalton had predicted, new life to the business, for the offer of
liberal cash advances brought heavier consignments, and opened the
way for more extensive operations. The general management of affairs
was left, according to previous understanding, in the hands of the
senior partner, as most competent for that department; while
Eldridge gave his mind to the practical details of the business,
which, by the end of a year, had grown far beyond his anticipations.

Accepting large consignments of goods, upon which advances had to be
made, required the raising of a great deal of money; and this Dalton
managed to accomplish without calling away the attention of his
partner from what he was engaged in doing. Thus matters went on for
about three years, when Dalton began to complain of failing health,
and to hint that he would be compelled to retire from active
business. Eldridge said that he must not think of this; but the
senior partner did think of it very seriously. From that time his
health appeared to break rapidly; and in a few months he formally
announced his intention to withdraw. Finding both remonstrance and
persuasion of no avail, the basis of a dissolution of the
copartnership was agreed upon, in which the value of the business
itself, that would now be entirely in the hands of Eldridge, was
rated high as an offset to a pretty large sum which Dalton claimed
as his share in the concern. Without due reflection, there being a
balance of five thousand dollars to the credit of the firm in bank,
which, by the way, was provided for special effect at the time by
the cunning senior, Eldridge consented that, for his share of the
business, Dalton should be permitted to take bills receivable
amounting to six thousand dollars; a check for two thousand, and his
notes for ten thousand dollars besides, payable in three to eighteen
months. After all this was settled, a dissolution of the
copartnership was publicly announced, and Eldridge, with some
misgivings at heart, undertook the entire management of the business
himself. It was but a very little while before he found himself
embarrassed in making his payments. The withdrawal of two thousand
dollars in cash, and six thousand in paper convertible into cash,
created a serious disability. In fact, an earnest and thorough
investigation of the whole business showed it to be so crippled that
little less than a miracle would enable him to conduct it to a safe
issue. Nevertheless, still unsuspicious to the real truth, he
resolved to struggle manfully for a triumph over the difficulties
that lay before him, and overcome them, if there was any virtue in
energy and perseverance.

The first point at which the business suffered was in the loss of
consignments. Inability to make the required advances turned from
the warehouse of Eldridge large lots of goods almost weekly, the
profits on the sales of which would have been a handsome addition to
his income. At the end of three months, the first note of a thousand
dollars held by Dalton fell due, and was paid. This was so much more
taken from his capital. Another month brought a payment of a like
amount, and at the end of six months a thousand dollars more were
paid. Thus Dalton had been able to get eleven thousand dollars out
of the concern, although three years before he was not really worth
a dollar; and there were still due him seven thousand dollars.

By this time, the eyes of Eldridge were beginning to open to the
truth. Suspicion being once finally awakened, he entered upon a
careful examination of the business from the time of forming the
copartnership. This occupied him for some weeks before he was able
to bring out a clear and comprehensive exhibit of affairs. Then he
saw that he had been the victim of a specious and cunning scoundrel,
and that, so far from being worth a dollar, he had obligations
falling due for over ten thousand dollars more than he had the means
to pay.

A sad and disheartening result! And what added to the pain of
Eldridge was the fact, that he should have been so weak and
short-sighted as to permit himself to be thus duped and cheated.

"I knew how it would be," said Mr. Hueston, coolly, when he was told
that Eldridge was in difficulties. "Nothing else was to have been
expected."

"Why so?" inquired the person to whom the remark was made.

"Everybody knows Dalton to be a sharper. Eldridge is not his first
victim."

"I did not know it."

"I did, then, and prophesied just this result."

"You?"

"Yes, certainly I did. I knew exactly how it must turn out. And
here's the end, as I predicted."

This was said with great self-complacency.

Soon after the conversation, a young man, named Williams, who had
only a year before married the daughter of Mr. Hueston, came into
his store with a look of trouble on his countenance. His business
was that of an exchange-broker, and in conducting it he was using
the credit of his father-in-law quite liberally.

"What's the matter?" inquired Mr. Hueston, seeing, by the expression
of the young man's face, that something was wrong.

"Have you heard any thing about Eldridge?" inquired Williams, in an
anxious voice.

"Yes, I understand that he is about making a failure of it; and, if
so, it will be a bad one. But what has that to do with your
affairs?"

"If he fails, I am ruined," replied the young man, becoming greatly
excited.

"You?" It was now Mr. Hueston's turn to exhibit a disturbed aspect.

"I hold seven thousand dollars of his paper."

"Seven thousand dollars!"

"Yes."

"How in the name of wonder did it come into your possession?"

"I took it from Dalton at a tempting discount."

"From Dalton! Then his name is on the paper?"

"No, I hold it without recourse."

"What folly! How could you have done such a thing?"

"I believed Eldridge to be perfectly good. Dalton said that he was
in the way of making a fortune."

"Why, then, was he anxious to part with his paper without recourse?"

"It was, he alleged, on account of ill-health. He wished to close up
all his business and make an investment of what little he possessed
previous to going south, in the hope that a change of air would
brace up his shattered constitution."

"It was all a lie--the scoundrel! His health is as good as mine. A
greater villain than he is does not walk the earth. I wonder how you
could have been so duped."

"How do you think Eldridge's affairs will turn out?" asked the young
man.

"Worse than nothing, I suppose. I understand that he paid Dalton
some eighteen thousand dollars for his half of the business. There
was but ten thousand dollars capital at first; and, from the way
things were conducted, instead of its increasing, it must have
diminished yearly."

Here was an entirely new aspect in the case. Mr. Hueston's
self-complacency was gone; he knew how it would be with Eldridge
from the first, but he didn't know how it was going to be with
himself. He didn't for a moment dream that when the fabric of the
young man's fortune came falling around him, that any thing
belonging to him would be buried under the ruins.

"Too bad! too bad!" he ejaculated, as, under a sense of the utter
desperation of the case, he struck his hands together, and then
threw them above his head. But it did no good to fret and scold, and
blame his son-in-law; the error had been committed, and it was now
too late to retrace a step. Six or seven thousand dollars would
inevitably be lost; and, as Williams had no capital, originally, of
his own, the money would have to come out of his pocket. The ruin of
which the young man talked was more in his imagination than anywhere
else, as Mr. Hueston was able enough to sustain him in his
difficulty.

In the winding up of the affairs of Eldridge, who stopped payment on
the day Williams announced to his father-in-law the fact that he
held his notes, every thing turned out as badly as Mr. Hueston had
predicted. The unhappy young man was almost beside himself with
trouble, mortification, and disappointment. Not only had he lost
every thing he possessed in the world; he was deeply involved in
debt besides, and his good name was gone. A marriage contract, into
which he had entered, was broken off in consequence; the father of
the lady demanding of him a release of the engagement in a way so
insulting, that the young man flung insult back into his teeth, and
never after went near his house.

For months after the disastrous termination of his business,
Eldridge lingered about the city in a miserable state of mind. Some
friends obtained for him a situation as clerk, but he did not keep
the place very long; it seemed almost impossible for him to fix his
attention upon any thing. This neglect of the interests of his
employer was so apparent, that he was dismissed from his place at
the end of a few months. This increased the morbid despondency under
which he was labouring, and led to an almost total abandonment of
himself. In less than a year, he was travelling swiftly along the
road to utter ruin.

One day, it was just twelve months from the time of Eldridge's
failure, Mr. Hueston stood conversing with a gentleman, when the
unhappy young man went reeling by, so much intoxicated that he with
difficulty kept his feet.

"Poor fellow!" said the gentleman, in a tone of pity. "He was badly
dealt by."

"There is no doubt of that," returned Mr. Hueston. "Dalton managed
his cards with his usual skill. But I knew how it would be from the
first. I knew that Dalton was a knave at heart, and would overreach
him."

"You did?" was rejoined, with a look and tone of surprise.

"Oh, yes. I predicted, from the beginning, the very result that has
come out."

"You warned the young man, of course?" inquired the gentleman.

"No."

"What! Saw him in the hands of a sharper, and gave him no warning?"

"I never meddle in other people's affairs. I find as much as I can
do to take proper care of my own."

"And yet, if common report is true, had you taken a little care of
this young man, you would have saved six or seven thousand dollars
for yourself."

"That's my look-out," said Mr. Hueston.

"You knew how it would be," resumed the gentleman, in a severe,
rebuking voice, "and yet kept silence, permitting an honest,
confiding young man to fall into the clutches of a scoundrel. Mr.
Hueston, society holds you responsible for the ruin of one of its
members, equally responsible with the knave who was the agent of the
ruin. A word would have saved the young man; but, in your
indifference and disregard of others' good, you would not speak that
word. When next you see the miserable wreck of a human being that
but just now went staggering past, remember the work of your own
hands is before you."

And saying this, the man turned abruptly away, leaving Mr. Hueston
so much astonished and bewildered by the unexpected charge, as
scarcely to comprehend where he was. Recovering himself in a moment
or two, he walked slowly along, his eyes upon the ground, with what
feelings the reader may imagine.

A few days afterwards, his son-in-law, at his instance, went in
search of Eldridge for the purpose of offering him assistance, and
making an effort to reclaim him. But, alas! he was too late; death
had finished the work of ruin.






JACOB JONES;

OR, THE MAN WHO COULDN'T GET ALONG IN THE WORLD.





JACOB JONES was clerk in a commission store at a salary of five
hundred dollars a year. He was just twenty-two, and had been
receiving his salary for two years. Jacob had no one to care for but
himself; but, somehow or other, it happened that he did not lay up
any money, but, instead, usually had from fifty to one hundred
dollars standing against him on the books of his tailors.

"How much money have you laid by, Jacob?" said, one day, the
merchant who employed him. This question came upon Jacob rather
suddenly; and coming from the source that it did was not an
agreeable one--for the merchant was a very careful and economical
man.

"I haven't laid by any thing yet," replied Jacob, with a slight air
of embarrassment.

"You haven't!" said the merchant, in surprise. "Why, what have you
done with your money?"

"I've spent it, somehow or other."

"It must have been somehow or other. I should think, or somehow
else," returned the employer, half seriously, and half playfully.
"But really, Jacob, you are a very thoughtless young man to waste
your money."

"I don't think I _waste_ my money," said Jacob.

"What, then, have you done with it?" asked the merchant.

"It costs me the whole amount of my salary to live."

The merchant shook his head.

"Then you live extravagantly for a young man of your age and
condition. How much do you pay for boarding?"

"Four dollars a week."

"Too much by from fifty cents to a dollar. But even paying that sum,
four more dollars per week ought to meet fully all your other
expenses, and leave you what would amount to nearly one hundred
dollars per annum to lay by. I saved nearly two hundred dollars a
year on a salary no larger than you receive."

"I should like very much to know how you did it. I can't save a
cent; in fact, I hardly ever have ten dollars in my pocket."

"Where does your money go, Jacob? In what way do you spend a hundred
dollars a year more than is necessary?"

"It is spent, I know; and that is pretty much all I can tell about
it," replied Jacob.

"You can certainly tell by your private account-book."

"I don't keep any private account, sir."

"You don't?" in surprise.

"No, sir. What's the use? My salary is five hundred dollars a year,
and wouldn't be any more nor less if I kept an account of every half
cent of it."

"Humph!"

The merchant said no more. His mind was made up about his clerk. The
fact that he spent five hundred dollars a year, and kept no private
account, was enough for him.

"He'll never be any good to himself nor anybody else. Spend his
whole salary--humph! Keep no private account--humph!"

This was the opinion held of Jacob Jones by his employer from that
day. The reason why he had inquired as to how much money he had
saved was this. He had a nephew, a poor young man, who, like Jacob,
was a clerk, and showed a good deal of ability for business. His
salary was rather more than what Jacob received, and, like Jacob, he
spent it all; but not on himself. He supported, mainly, his mother
and a younger brother and sister. A good chance for a small, but
safe beginning, was seen by the uncle, which would require only
about a thousand dollars as an investment. In his opinion it would
be just the thing for Jacob and the nephew. Supposing that Jacob had
four or five hundred dollars laid by, it was his intention, if he
approved of the thing, to furnish his nephew with a like sum, in
order to join him and to enter into business. But the acknowledgment
of Jacob that he had not saved a dollar, and that he kept no private
account, settled the matter in the merchant's mind, as far as he was
concerned.

About a month afterward, Jacob met his employer's nephew, who said,

"I am going into business."

"You are?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do?"

"Open a commission store."

"Ah! Can you get any good consignments?"

"I am to have the agency for a new mill, which has just commenced
operations, besides consignments of goods from several small
concerns at the East."

"You will have to make advances."

"To no great extent. My uncle has secured the agency of the new mill
here without any advance being required, and eight hundred or a
thousand dollars will be as much as I shall need to secure as many
goods as I can sell from the other establishments of which I speak."

"But where will the eight hundred or a thousand dollars come from?"

"My uncle has placed a thousand dollars at my disposal. Indeed, the
whole thing is the result of his recommendation."

"Your uncle! You are a lucky dog. I wish I had a rich uncle. But
there is no such good fortune for me."

This was the conclusion of Jacob Jones, who made himself quite
unhappy for some weeks, brooding over the matter. He never once
dreamed of the real cause of his not having had an equal share in
his young friend's good fortune. He had not the most distant idea
that his employer felt nearly as much regard for him as for his
nephew, and would have promoted his interests as quickly, if he had
felt justified in doing so.

"It's my luck, I suppose," was the final conclusion of his mind;
"and it's no use to cry about it. Anyhow, it isn't every man with a
rich uncle, and a thousand dollars advanced, who succeeds in
business, nor every man who starts without capital that is
unsuccessful. I understand as much about business as the old man's
nephew, any day; and can get consignments as well as he can."

Three or four months after this, Jacob notified the merchant that he
was going to start for himself, and asked his interest as far as he
could give it, without interfering with his own business. His
employer did not speak very encouragingly about the matter, which
offended Jacob.

"He's afraid I'll injure his nephew," said he to himself. "But he
needn't be uneasy--the world is wide enough for us all, the old
hunks!"

Jacob borrowed a couple of hundred dollars, took a store at five
hundred dollars a year rent, and employed a clerk and porter. He
then sent his circulars to a number of manufactories at the East,
announcing the fact of his having opened a new commission house, and
soliciting consignments. His next move was, to leave his
boarding-house, where he had been paying four dollars a week, and
take lodgings at a hotel at seven dollars a week.

Notwithstanding Jacob went regularly to the post-office twice every
day, few letters came to hand, and but few of them contained bills
of lading and invoices. The result of the first year's business was
an income from commission on sales of seven hundred dollars. Against
this were the items of one thousand dollars for personal expenses,
five hundred dollars for store-rent, seven hundred dollars for clerk
and porter, and for petty and contingent expenses two hundred
dollars; leaving the uncomfortable deficit of seventeen hundred
dollars, which stood against him in the form of bills payable for
sales effected, and small notes of accommodation borrowed from his
friends.

The result of the first year's business of his old employer's nephew
was very different. The gross profits were three thousand dollars,
and the expenses as follows: personal expense, seven hundred
dollars--just what the young man's salary had previously been, and
out of which he supported his mother and her family--store rent,
three hundred dollars; porter, two hundred and fifty; petty
expenses, one hundred dollars--in all thirteen hundred and fifty
dollars, leaving a net profit of sixteen hundred and fifty dollars.
It will be seen that he did not go to the expense of a clerk during
the first year. He preferred working a little harder, and keeping
his own books, by which an important saving was effected.

At the end of the second year, notwithstanding Jacob Jones's
business more than doubled itself, he was compelled to wind up, and
found himself twenty-five hundred dollars worse than nothing.
Several of his unpaid bills to eastern houses were placed in suit,
and as he lived in a state where imprisonment for debt still
existed, he was compelled to go through the forms required by the
insolvent laws, to keep clear of durance vile.

At the very period when he was driven under by adverse gales, his
young friend, who had gone into business about the same time, found
himself under the necessity of employing a clerk. He offered Jones a
salary of four hundred dollars, the most he believed himself yet
justified in paying. This was accepted, and Jacob found himself once
more standing upon _terra firma_, although the portion upon which
his feet rested was very small; still it was _terra firma_--and that
was something.

The real causes of his ill success never for a moment occurred to
the mind of Jacob. He considered himself an "unlucky dog."

"Every thing that some people touch turns into money," he would
sometimes say. "But I was not born under a lucky star."

Instead of rigidly bringing down his expenses, as he ought to have
done, to four hundred dollars, if he had to live in a garret and
cook his own food, Jacob went back to his old boarding-house, and
paid four dollars a week. All his other expenses required at least
eight dollars more to meet them. He was perfectly aware that he was
living beyond his income--the exact excess he did not stop to
ascertain--but he expected an increase of salary before long, as a
matter of course, either in his present situation or in a new one.
But no increase took place for two years, and then he was between
three and four hundred dollars in debt to tailors, boot-makers, his
landlady, and to sundry friends, to whom he applied for small sums
of money in cases of emergency.

One day, about this time, two men were conversing together quite
earnestly, as they walked leisurely along one of the principal
streets of the city where Jacob resided. One was past the prime of
life, and the other about twenty-two. They were father and son, and
the subject of conversation related to the wish of the latter to
enter into business. The father did not think the young man was
possessed of sufficient knowledge of business or experience, and
was, therefore, desirous of associating some one with him who could
make up these deficiencies. If he could find just the person that
pleased him, he was ready to advance capital and credit to an amount
somewhere within the neighbourhood of twenty thousand dollars. For
some months he had been thinking of Jacob, who was a first-rate
salesman, had a good address, and was believed by him to possess
business habits eminently conducive to success. The fact that he had
once failed was something of a drawback in his mind, but he had
asked Jacob the reason of his ill-success, which was so plausibly
explained, that he considered the young man as simply unfortunate in
not having capital, and nothing else.

"I think Mr. Jones just the right man for you," said the father, as
they walked along.

"I don't know of any one with whom I had rather form a business
connection. He is a man of good address, business habits, and, as
far as I know, good principles."

"Suppose you mention the subject to him this afternoon."

This was agreed to. The two men then entered the shop of a
fashionable tailor, for the purpose of ordering some clothes. While
there, a man having the appearance of a collector came in, and drew
the tailor aside. The conversation was brief but earnest, and
concluded by the tailor's saying, so loud that he could be heard by
all who were standing near,

"It's no use to waste your time with him any longer. Just hand over
the account to Simpson, and let him take care of it."

The collector turned away, and the tailor came back to his
customers.

"It is too bad," said he, "the way some of these young fellows do
serve us. I have now several thousand dollars on my books against
clerks who receive salaries large enough to support them handsomely,
and I can't collect a dollar of it. There is Jacob Jones, whose
account I have just ordered to be placed in the hands of a lawyer,
he owes me nearly two hundred dollars, and I can't get a cent out of
him. I call him little better than a scamp."

The father and son exchanged glances of significance, but said
nothing. The fate of Jacob Jones was sealed.

"If that is the case," said the father, as they stepped into the
street, "the less we have to do with him the better."

To this the son assented. Another more prudent young man was
selected, whose fortune was made.

When Jacob received Lawyer Simpson's note, threatening a suit if the
tailor's bill was not paid, he was greatly disturbed.

"Am I not the most unfortunate man in the world?" said he to
himself, by way of consolation. "After having paid him so much
money, to be served like this. It is too bad. But this is the way of
the world. Let a poor devil once get a little under the weather,
every one must have a kick at him."

In this dilemma poor Jacob had to call upon the tailor, and beg him
for further time. This was humiliating, especially as the tailor was
considerably out of humour, and disposed to be hard with him. A
threat to apply for the benefit of the insolvent law again, if a
suit was pressed to an issue, finally induced the tailor to waive
legal proceedings for the present, and Jacob had the immediate
terrors of the law taken from before his eyes.

This event set Jacob to thinking and calculating, which he had never
before deemed necessary in his private affairs. The result did not
make him feel any happier. To his astonishment, he ascertained that
he owed more than the whole of his next year's salary would pay,
while that was not in itself sufficient to meet his current
expenses.

For some weeks after this discovery of the real state of his
affairs, Jacob was very unhappy. He applied for an increase of
salary, and obtained one hundred dollars per annum. This was
something, which was about all that could be said. If he could live
on four hundred dollars a year, which he had never yet been able to
do, the addition to his salary would not pay his tailor's bill
within two years; and what was he to do with boot-maker, landlady,
and others?

It happened about this time that a clerk in the bank where his old
employer was director died. His salary was one thousand dollars. For
the vacant place Jacob made immediate application, and was so
fortunate as to secure it.

Under other circumstances, Jacob would have refused a salary of
fifteen hundred dollars in a bank against five hundred in a
counting-room, and for the reason that a bank-clerk has little or no
hope beyond his salary all his life, while a counting-house clerk,
if he have any aptness for trade, stands a fair chance of getting
into business sooner or later, and making his fortune as a merchant.
But a debt of four hundred dollars hanging over his head was an
argument in favour of a clerkship in the bank, at a salary of a
thousand dollars a year, not to be resisted.

"I'll keep it until I get even with the world again," he consoled
himself by saying, "and then I'll go back into a counting-room. I've
an ambition above being a bank-clerk all my life."

Painful experience had made Jacob a little wiser.

For the first time in his life he commenced keeping an account of
his personal expenses. This acted as a salutary check upon his bad
habit of spending money for every little thing that happened to
strike his fancy, and enabled him to clear off his whole debt within
the first year. Unwisely, however, he had, during this time,
promised to pay some old debts, from which the law had released him.
The persons holding these claims, finding him in the receipt of a
higher salary, made an appeal to his honour, which, like an honest
but imprudent man, he responded to by a promise of payment as soon
as it was in his power. But little time elapsed after these promises
were made before he found himself in the hands of constables and
magistrates, and was only saved from imprisonment by getting friends
to go his bail for six and nine months. In order to secure them, he
had to give an order in advance for his salary. To get these burdens
off his shoulders, it took twelve months longer, and then he was
nearly thirty years of age.

"Thirty years old!" said he to himself on his thirtieth birth-day.
"Can it be possible? Long before this I ought to have been doing a
flourishing business, and here I am, nothing but a bank-clerk, with
the prospect of never rising a step higher as long as I live. I
don't know how it is that some people get along so well in the
world. I'm sure I am as industrious, and can do business as well as
any man; but here I am still at the point from which I started
twenty years ago. I can't understand it. I'm afraid there's more in
luck than I'm willing to believe."

From this time Jacob set himself to work to obtain a situation in
some store or counting-room, and finally, after looking about for
nearly a year, was fortunate enough to obtain a good place, as
bookkeeper and salesman, with a wholesale grocer and commission
merchant. Seven hundred dollars was to be his salary. His friends
called him a fool for giving up an easy place at one thousand
dollars a year, for a hard one at seven hundred. But the act was a
much wiser one than many others of his life.

Instead of saving money during the third year of his receipt of one
thousand dollars, he spent the whole of his salary, without paying
off a single old debt. His private account-keeping had continued
through a year and a half. After that it was abandoned. Had it been
continued, it might have saved him three or four hundred dollars,
which were now all gone, and nothing to show for them. Poor Jacob!
Experience did not make him much wiser.

Two years passed, and at least half a dozen young men, here and
there around our friend Jacob, went into business, either as
partners in some old houses or under the auspices of relatives or
interested friends. But there appeared no opening for him.

He did not know, that, many times during that period, he had been
the subject of conversation between parties, one or both of which
were looking out for a man, of thorough business qualifications,
against which capital would be placed; nor the fact, that either his
first failure, his improvidence, or something else personal to
himself, had caused him to be set aside for some other one not near
so capable.

He was lamenting his ill-luck one day, when a young man with whom he
was very well acquainted, and who was clerk in a neighbouring store,
called in and said he wanted to have some talk with him about a
matter of interest to both.

"First of all, Mr. Jones," said the young man, after they were
alone, "how much capital could you raise by a strong effort?"

"I am sure I don't know," replied Jacob, not in a very cheerful
tone. "I never was lucky in having friends ready to assist me."

"Well! perhaps there will be no need of that. You have had a good
salary for four or five years; how much have you saved? Enough,
probably, to answer every purpose--that is, if you are willing to
join me in taking advantage of one of the best openings for business
that has offered for a long time. I have a thousand dollars in the
Savings Bank. You have as much, or more, I presume?"

"I am sorry to say I have not," was poor Jacob's reply, in a
desponding voice. "I was unfortunate in business some years ago, and
my old debts have drained away from me every dollar I could earn."

"Indeed! that is unfortunate. I was in hopes you could furnish a
thousand dollars."

"I might borrow it, perhaps, if the chance is a very good one."

"Well, if you could do that, it would be as well, I suppose,"
returned the young man. "But you must see about it immediately. If
you cannot join me at once, I must find one who will, for the chance
is too good to be lost."

Jacob got a full statement of the business proposed, its nature and
prospects, and then laid the matter before the three merchants with
whom he had at different times lived in the capacity of clerk, and
begged them to advance him the required capital. The subject was
taken up by them and seriously considered. They all liked Jacob, and
felt willing to promote his interests, but had little or no
confidence in his ultimate success, on account of his want of
economy in personal matters. It was very justly remarked by one of
them, that this want of economy, and judicious use of money in
personal matters, would go with him in business, and mar all his
prospects. Still, as they had great confidence in the other man,
they agreed to advance, jointly, the sum needed.

In the mean time, the young man who had made the proposition to
Jacob, when he learned that he had once failed in business, was
still in debt, and liable to have claims pushed against him, (this
he inferred from Jacob's having stretched the truth, by saying that
his old debts drained away from him every dollar, when the fact was
he was freed from them by the provisions of the insolvent law of the
State,) came to the conclusion that a business connection with him
was a thing to be avoided rather than sought after. He accordingly
turned his thoughts in another quarter, and when Jones called to
inform him that he had raised the capital needed, he was coolly told
that it was too late, he having an hour before closed a partnership
arrangement with another person, under the belief that Jones could
not advance the money required.

This was a bitter disappointment, and soured the mind of Jacob
against his fellow man, and against the fates also, which he alleged
were all combined against him. His own share in the matter was a
thing undreamed of. He believed himself far better qualified for
business than the one who had been preferred before him, and he had
the thousand dollars to advance. It must be his luck that was
against him, nothing else; he could come to no other conclusion.
Other people could get along in the world, but he couldn't. That was
the great mystery of his life.

For two years Jacob had been waiting to get married. He had not
wished to take this step before entering into business, and having a
fair prospect before him. But years were creeping on him apace, and
the fair object of his affections seemed weary of delay.

"It's no use to wait any longer," said he, after this dashing of his
cup to the earth. "Luck is against me. I shall never be any thing
but a poor devil of a clerk. If Clara is willing to share my humble
lot, we might as well be married first as last."

Clara was not unwilling, and Jacob Jones entered into the estate
connubial, and took upon him the cares of a family, with a salary of
seven hundred dollars a year, to sustain the new order of things.
Instead of taking cheap boarding, or renting a couple of rooms, and
commencing housekeeping in a small way, Jacob saw but one course
before him, and that was to rent a genteel house, go in debt for
genteel furniture, and keep two servants. Two years were the longest
that he could bear up under this state of things, when he was sold
out by the sheriff, and forced "to go through the mill again," as
taking the benefit of the insolvent law was facetiously called in
the State where he resided.

"Poor fellow! he has a hard time of it. I wonder why it is that he
gets along so badly. He is an industrious man and regular in his
habits. It is strange. But some men seem born to ill-luck."

So said some of his pitying friends. Others understood the matter
better.

Ten years have passed, and Jacob is still a clerk, but not in a
store. Hopeless of getting into business, he applied for a vacancy
that occurred in an insurance company, and received the appointment,
which he still holds at a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year.
After being sold out three times by the sheriff, and having the deep
mortification of seeing her husband brought down to the humiliating
necessity of applying as often for the benefit of the insolvent law,
Mrs. Jones took affairs, by consent of her husband, into her own
hands, and managed them with such prudence and economy, that,
notwithstanding they have five children, the expenses, all told, are
not over eight hundred dollars a year, and half of the surplus, four
hundred dollars, is appropriated to the liquidation of debts
contracted since their marriage, and the other half deposited in the
Savings Bank, as a fund for the education of their children in the
higher branches, when they reach a more advanced age.

To this day it is a matter of wonder to Jacob Jones why he could
never get along in the world like some people; and he has come to
the settled conviction that it is his "luck."






STARTING A NEWSPAPER.

AN EXPERIENCE OF MR. JOHN JONES.





IT happened sometime within the last ten or fifteen years, that, in
my way through this troublesome world, I became captivated with the
idea of starting a newspaper. That I had some talent for scribbling,
I was vain enough to believe, and my estimate of the ability I
possessed was sufficiently high to induce me to think that I could
give a peculiar interest to the columns of a weekly paper, were such
a publication entirely under my control.

I talked about the matter to a number of my literary and other
friends, who, much to my satisfaction, saw all in a favourable
light, and promised, if I would go on in the proposed enterprise, to
use all their interest in my favour.

"I," said one, "will guaranty you fifty subscribers among my own
circle of acquaintances."

"And I," said another, "am good for double that number."

"Put me down for a hundred more," said a third, and so the promises
of support came like music to my willing ear.

One or two old veterans of the "press gang," to whom I spoke of my
design, shrugged their shoulders, and said I had better try my hand
at almost any thing else. But I was sanguine that I could succeed,
though hundreds had failed before me. I felt that I possessed a
peculiar fitness for the work, and could give a peculiar charm to a
newspaper that would at once take it to the hearts and homes of the
people.

A printer was called upon for an estimate, based upon a circulation
of three thousand copies, which was set down as a very moderate
expectation. He gave the whole cost of paper, composition, (type
setting,) and press-work, at $4000.

This fell a little below my own roughly-made estimate, and settled
my determinations. Two thousand copies, at two dollars a copy, which
was to be the subscription price, would pay all the expenses, and if
the number of subscribers rose to three thousand, of which there was
not the shadow of a doubt in my mind, I would have a clear profit of
$2000 the first year. And should it go to four thousand, as was most
probable, my net income would be about $3400, for all increase would
simply be chargeable with cost of paper and press-work--or about
sixty cents on a subscriber. After the first year, of course there
would be a steady increase in the number of subscribers, which, if
at the rate of only a thousand a year, would give me in five years
the handsome annual income of $9000. I was rich in prospective!
Nothing could now hold me back. I ordered the printer to get ready
his cases, and the paper-maker to provide, by a certain time, the
paper.

As the terms were to be in advance, or rather the whole year payable
at the expiration of the first quarter, I promised to begin paying
cash for all contracts at the end of the first quarter. Up to this
period of my life, I had gone on the strict principle of owing no
man any thing, and I was known in the community where I lived to be
a strictly honest and honourable man. Never having strained my
credit, it was tight and strong, and I had but to ask the three
months' favour to get it without a sign of reluctance.

Next I issued my prospectus for the "Literary Gazette and Weekly
Reflex of Art, Literature, and Science, a Newspaper devoted to, &c.
&c.," and scattered copies among my friends, expecting each to do
his duty for me like a man. They were also posted in every
book-store, hotel, and public place in the city. Said city, be it
known, rejoiced in a population of a hundred thousand souls, of
which number I saw no reason for doubting my ability to reach, with
my interesting paper, at least three or four thousand, in the end.
That was felt to be a very moderate calculation indeed. Then, when I
turned my eyes over our vast country, with its millions and millions
of intelligent, enlightened, reading and prosperous people, I felt
that even to admit a doubt of success was a weakness for which I
ought to be ashamed. And I wondered why, with such a harvest to
reap, twenty such enterprises to one were not started.

While in this sanguine state, an individual who had been for thirty
years a publisher and editor, prompted, as he said, by a sincere
interest in my welfare, called to see me in order to give me the
benefit of his experience. He asked me to state my views of the
enterprise upon which I was about entering, which I did in glowing
terms.

"Very well, Mr. Jones," said he, after I was done, "you base your
calculations on three thousand subscribers?"

"I do," was my answer.

"From which number you expect to receive six thousand dollars."

"Certainly; the price of the paper is to be two dollars."

"I doubt, my young friend, very much, whether you will receive four
thousand dollars from three thousand subscribers, if you should have
that number. Nay, if you get three thousand during the year, you may
be very thankful."

"Preposterous!" said I.

"No; not by any means. I have been over this ground before you, and
know pretty much what kind of harvest it yields."

"But," said I, "it is not my intention to throw the paper into every
man's house, whether he wants it or not. I will only take good
subscribers."

"You would call Mr. B----, over the way, a good subscriber, I
presume?"

"Oh yes!" I replied, "I would very much like to have a few thousand
like him."

"And Mr. Y----, his next-door neighbour?"

"Yes--he is good, of course."

"That is, able to pay."

"And willing."

"I happen to know, my young friend, that neither of those men will
pay a subscription to any thing if they can help it."

"Not to a work to which they have regularly subscribed?"

"No."

"That is as much as to say that they are dishonest men."

"You can say that or any thing else you please; I only give you the
information for your own government. You will find a good many like
them. Somehow or other, people seem to have a great aversion to
paying newspaper bills. I don't know how it is, but such is the
fact. And if you will take the advice of one who knows a good deal
more about the business than you do, you will go to wood-sawing in
preference to starting a newspaper. You _may_ succeed, but in ten
chances, there are nine on the side of failure."

I shrugged my shoulders and looked incredulous.

"Oh, very well!" said he, "go on and try for yourself. Bought wit is
the best, if you don't pay too dear for it. You are young yet, and a
little experience of this kind may do you no harm in the long run."

"I'm willing to take the risk, for I think I have counted the cost
pretty accurately. As for a failure, I don't mean to know the word.
There is a wide field of enterprise before me, and I intend to
occupy it fully."

The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders in return, but volunteered
no more of his good advice.

A week before the first number of the "Gazette and Reflex" was
ready, I called in my prospectuses, in order to have the thousand or
fifteen hundred names they contained regularly entered in the
subscription-books with which I had provided myself. I had rented an
office and employed a clerk. These were two items of expense that
had not occurred to me when making my first calculation. It was
rather a damper on the ardency of my hopes, to find, that instead of
the large number of subscribers I had fondly expected to receive,
the aggregate from all quarters was but two hundred!

One very active friend, who had guarantied me fifty himself, had but
three names to his list; and another, who said I might set him down
for a hundred, had not been able to do any thing, and, moreover,
declined taking the paper himself, on the plea that he already took
more magazines and newspapers than he could read or afford to pay
for. Others gave as a reason for the little they had done, the want
of a specimen number, and encouraged me with the assurance, that as
soon as the paper appeared, there would be a perfect rush of
subscribers.

In due time, the first number appeared, and a very attractive sheet
it was--in my eyes. I took the first copy that came from the press,
and, sitting down in my office, looked it over with a feeling of
paternal pride, never before or since experienced. A more beautiful
object, or rather one that it gave me more delight to view, had
never been presented to my vision. If doubt had come in to disturb
me, it all vanished now. To see the "Gazette and Reflex" would be
enough. The two hundred "good names" on my list were felt to be
ample for a start. Each copy circulated among those would bring from
one to a dozen new subscribers. I regretted exceedingly that the
type of the first form of the paper had been distributed. Had this
not been the case, I would have ordered an additional thousand to be
added to the three thousand with which I commenced my enterprise.

Saturday was the regular publication day of the paper, but I issued
it on the preceding Wednesday. That is, served it to my two hundred
subscribers and had it distributed to the daily press. With what
eagerness did I look over the papers on Thursday morning, to see the
glowing notices of my beautiful "Gazette and Reflex." I opened the
first one that came to hand, glanced down column after column, but
not a word about me or mine was there! A keener sense of
disappointment I have never experienced. I took up another, and the
first words that met my eyes were:

"We have received the first number of a new weekly paper started in
this city, entitled the 'Literary Gazette and Weekly Reflex.' It is
neat, and appears to be conducted with ability. It will, no doubt,
receive a good share of patronage."

I threw aside the paper with an angry exclamation, and forthwith set
the editor down as a jealous churl. In one or two other newspapers I
found more extended and better notices; but they all fell so far
short of the real merits of my bantling, that I was sadly vexed and
disheartened. To have my advent announced so coldly and
ungraciously, hurt me exceedingly. Still, I expected the mere
announcement to bring a crowd of subscribers to my office; but,
alas! only three presented themselves during the day. Generously
enough, they paid down for the paper in advance, thus giving me six
dollars, the first income from my new enterprise and the earnest of
thousands that were soon to begin pouring in like a never-failing
stream.

My friends called one after another, to congratulate me on the
beautiful appearance of my paper, and to predict, for my
encouragement, its widely extended popularity. I believed all they
said, and more. But for all this, by the time the second number made
its appearance, my list had only increased one hundred. Still, on
reflection, this appeared very good, for at the rate of a hundred a
week, I would have five thousand in a year.

"Why don't you employ canvassers?" inquired one. "There are hundreds
in the city who will take the paper if it is only presented to
them."

Acting on this hint, I advertised for men to solicit subscribers.
Five of those who applied were chosen and distributed through five
different sections of the city. I agreed to pay fifty cents for
every good subscriber obtained. This was, of course, a pretty heavy
drawback upon my expected income, but then it was admitted on all
hands that a subscriber was worth fifty cents, as after he was once
obtained he would doubtless remain a subscriber for years.

At the close of the first day my men brought in an average of ten
subscribers each. The agreement was, that I was to pay them
twenty-five cents on the name of a new subscriber being handed in,
and the remaining twenty-five cents when the subscription due at the
expiration of the first three months was collected. So I had twelve
dollars and a half cash, to pay down. But then my list was increased
to the extent of fifty names. The average of new subscribers from my
agents continued for a couple of weeks, and then fell off sensibly.
By the end of two months, my canvassers left the field, some of them
sick of the business, and others tempted by more promising
inducements.

Many of the country papers noticed my "Gazette and Reflex" in the
most flattering manner, and not a few of them copied my prospectus.
This had the effect to bring me in a few hundred subscribers by
mail, with the cash, in a large number of cases in advance. About
one-third, however, promised to remit early.

At the end of three months, according to promise, I was to pay my
printer and paper maker. Up to that time my cash receipts had been
three hundred dollars, but every cent was gone. My clerk had to be
paid seven dollars a week regularly, and a mail and errand boy,
three dollars. Advertising had cost me twenty-five dollars; account
and subscription books as much more; and I had paid over fifty
dollars to my agents for getting subscribers. Besides, there had
been a dozen little et ceteras of expense, not before taken into
calculation. Moreover, out of this three hundred dollars of income I
had my own personal expenses to pay.

In the thirteenth number of my paper, I gave notice that the three
months having expired, all subscriptions were due for the year
according to the terms, and called upon subscribers "to step to the
captain's office and settle." There were of unpaid subscribers now
upon my books the number of five hundred and forty, and my debt to
printer and paper maker was exactly nine hundred and eighty dollars,
I having kept on printing three thousand copies, under the belief
that the list must go up to that.

Day after day went by after this notice appeared, yet not a single
man answered to the invitation. I began to feel serious. Subscribers
continued to come in, though slowly, and people all spoke highly of
the paper and said it must succeed. But its success, so far, was not
over flattering. Finding that people would not take the plain hint I
had given, I went over the books and made out all the bills. One
thousand and eighty dollars was the aggregate amount due. These
bills, except those for the country, I placed in the hands of a
collector, and told him to get me in the money as quickly as
possible. Those for the country, about one hundred in number, I
enclosed in the paper. On the faith of this proceeding, I promised
the paper maker and printer each two hundred dollars in a couple of
weeks.

Four days elapsed without my collector making his appearance,
greatly to my surprise. On the fifth day I met him in the street.

"Well, how are you coming on?" said I.

"Oh, slowly," he replied.

"I expected to see you a day or two ago."

"I had nothing of consequence to return. But I will be in on
Saturday."

I felt a kind of choking in my throat as I turned away. On Saturday
the collector called--he opened his memorandum-book, and I my
cash-book, preparatory to making entries of money returned.

"Mr. A----," said the collector, "says he never pays in advance for
any thing."

"But the terms of the paper are in advance after the first three
months."

"I know."

"Did you call his attention to this?"

"Oh, yes! but he said he didn't care for your terms. He'd been
swindled once or twice by paying in advance, but never intended to
give anybody the opportunity to do the same thing again."

Mr. A----was a man whom I had known for years. I cannot tell how
hurt and indignant I was at such language. He took my paper, knowing
the terms upon which it was published, and when I sent my bill,
refused to comply with the terms, and insulted me into the bargain.
I turned to his name on the subscription-book, and striking it off,
said--

"He can't have the paper."

"Credit Mr. B----with six months and discontinue," said the
collector, as he passed to the next name on his list. Mr. B----was a
man whom I knew very well by reputation. I had looked upon him as
one of my best subscribers. He was a merchant in easy circumstances.

"Why does he wish it stopped?" I asked.

"He says he merely took the paper by way of encouraging the
enterprise, and never supposed he would be called upon to pay for
it. He told Mr. J----, who asked him to subscribe, that he had more
papers now than he wanted, and Mr. J----said, No matter. He would
have it sent to him by way of adding another respectable name to the
list."

"Very well," said I, as I entered the name of Mr. B----in the
cash-book, "pass on."

This went fairly ahead of any thing I had ever dreamed of. I was too
much surprised even to make a remark on the subject.

"Mr. C---was as mad as a March hare when I presented his bill."

"Indeed! Why?"

"He paid your agent when he subscribed!"

"Did you see his receipt?"

"Yes. The agent took a hat and paid him the difference."

"The scoundrel! And charged me a quarter in addition, for returning
the subscriber!"

"These canvassers are a slippery set."

"That's swindling!"

"The fellow won't quarrel with you about the terms, seeing that he
enjoys the hat."

"Too bad! Too bad! Well, go on."

Mr. D----paid two dollars, but wants you to stop at the end of the
year. He merely took a copy at the start by way of encouraging the
enterprise. Thinks highly of the paper, but can't afford to take it
longer than a year."

"Very well."

"Mr. E---has paid."

"Well?"

"Mr. F----says he never subscribed, and does not want it. He says,
if you will send to his house, you can get all the numbers. He told
the carrier not to leave it from the first."

"I paid an agent for his name."

"He says he told the agent that he didn't want the paper. That he
took more now than he could read."

"Swindled again!"

"Mr. G----says he never saw the paper in his life."

"It's sent regularly."

"Some mistake in the carrier. Mr. H----paid, and wishes the paper
discontinued."

"Very well."

"Mr. I----says he can't afford to take it. His name was put down
without his consent."

I had received this name through one of my kind friends.

"Mr. J----paid a dollar, and wants it stopped."

"Well?"

"Mr. K----paid; also, Mr. L----and Mr. M----."

"Well?"

"Mr. N----says the paper is not left for him; but for a young man
who has gone West. Thinks you had better stop it."

I erased the name.

Mr. O---paid the agent."

"He never returned the money."

Mr. P----and Mr. Q----, ditto."

"Never saw a copper of their money. Paid a quarter apiece, cash, for
each of these subscribers."

"Mr. R----says the paper is not worth reading. That he wouldn't pay
a shilling a year for it. I advise you to stop it. He never pays for
any thing if he can help it. Mr. S----paid. Mr. T----paid up to this
date, and wishes it stopped. Never ordered it. Mr. U----paid. I
called upon a great many more, but they put me off with one excuse
or other. I never had a much worse lot of bills."

A basin of cold water on a sentimental serenader could not have
produced a greater revulsion of feeling than did this unlooked-for
return of my collector. Nineteen dollars and fifty cents, instead of
about two hundred dollars, were all he had been able to gather up;
there was no promise of success in the future on any different
scale. I received the money, less ten per cent. for collecting, and
was left alone to my own reflections. Not of the most pleasant kind,
the reader may well imagine. For an hour I brooded over the
strangely embarrassing position in which I found myself, and then,
after thinking until my head was hot and my feet and hands cold, I
determined to reduce, immediately, the edition of my paper from
three thousand to one thousand, and thus save an item of thirty
dollars a week in paper and press-work. To send off my clerk, also,
to whom I was paying seven dollars weekly, and with the aid of a
boy, attend to the office, and do the writing and mailing myself. I
then went over the subscription-book, and counted up the names. The
number was just seven hundred and twenty. I had but a little while
before replied to a question on the subject, that I had about twelve
hundred on my list. And I did vaguely imagine that I had that
number. I knew better now.

To describe minutely the trials, sufferings, and disappointments of
the whole year, would take too much time and space. The subsequent
returns of my collector were about on a par with the first. Finding
it impossible to pay the printer and paper maker, as promised, out
of the advance subscriptions falling due at the end of three months,
I borrowed from some of my friends about four hundred dollars, and
paid it over, stating, when I did so, that I must have a new
contract, based upon a six months' credit.

I found no great difficulty in obtaining this from the paper maker,
to whom I spoke in confident terms of my certain ultimate success.
The printer required half cash, which I agreed to pay.

This arrangement I fondly hoped would give me time to make my
collections, and, besides paying off the debt already accumulated,
enable me to acquire a surplus to meet the notes given, from time to
time, for paper and printing.

At the end of a year, my list, through various exertions and
sacrifices, had arisen to twelve hundred. On this I had collected
eight hundred dollars, and I calculated that there were about
sixteen hundred dollars due me, which, I thought, if all collected
in, would about square me up with the world. This I thought. But,
when I came to go over my bill-book and ledger, I found, to my utter
dismay, that I owed three thousand five hundred dollars! This must
be a mistake, I said, and went over my books again. The result was
as at first. I owed the money, and no mistake. But how it was, I
could not for some time comprehend. But a series of memorandums from
my cash-book, and an examination of printers' and paper makers'
bills, at length made all clear. I had used, on my own personal
account, four hundred dollars during the year. Office rent was two
hundred and fifty. My carriers had cost over a hundred dollars. My
boy one hundred and fifty, and ninety had been paid to the clerk
during the first three months. Sundry little items of expense during
the year made an aggregate of over a hundred. Paper and printing for
the first three months had been nearly a thousand dollars, and for
the last three quarters about twenty-two hundred dollars.

To go on with this odds against me, I had sense enough to see was
perfect folly. But, how could I stop? I was not worth a dollar in
the world; and the thought of wronging those who had trusted me in
full reliance upon my integrity, produced a feeling of suffocation.
Besides, I had worked for a year as few men work. From sunrise until
twelve, one, and two o'clock, I was engaged in the business or
editorial duties appertaining to my enterprise, and to abandon all
after such a struggle was disheartening.

After much deliberation, I concluded that the best thing I could do
was to sell out my list of subscribers to another and more
successful establishment in the city, and, for this purpose, waited
upon the publisher. He heard me, and after I had finished, asked my
terms. I told him fifteen hundred dollars for the list. He smiled,
and said he wouldn't give me five hundred for the whole concern,
debts and all. I got up, put on my hat, and left him with indignant
silence.

To go on was the worst horn for me to grasp in the dilemma in which
I found myself. To stop, would be to do so with some three or four
hundred persons paid in advance, for portions of a year. I was
dunned, daily, by my printer, for money, and in order to meet the
notes which had already fallen due, I had been compelled to borrow
temporarily from my friends. Unable to arrive at any satisfactory
conclusion, in despair, I summoned creditors and friends around me,
and laid before them a full statement of my condition. There were
some long faces at that meeting; but no one felt as I did. I shall
never forget the suffering and mortification of that day, were I to
live a thousand years.

The unanimous determination of the meeting was that I must stop,
collect in the money due, and divide it pro rata among my creditors.
I did so; announcing, at the same time, the heavy embarrassment
under which I had been brought, and earnestly soliciting those who
owed the paper, to settle their accounts immediately. To the few who
had paid the fraction of a year in advance, I stated how much I had
lost, and appealed to their magnanimity for a remission of the
obligation I remained under to furnish the paper for the time yet
due to them. It was but the matter of a few cents, or a dollar at
most to them, I said, but it was hundreds of dollars to me.

Well, and what was the sequel to all this? Why, to sum up what
remains to be told, in a few words; only two hundred dollars out of
the sixteen hundred were collected, and from those who had paid
small trifles in advance, I received dozens of letters, couched in
the most offensive terms. Some charged me with being a swindler, and
said, if I didn't immediately send the money overpaid, or some other
paper in the place of mine, they would publish me to the world.
Others said they would be in the city at a certain time and require
me to refund; while many, residing on the spot, took out their
money's worth, by telling me to my face what they thought of my
conduct. One man issued a warrant against me for thirty-five cents,
the sum overpaid by him.

So much for my experience in starting a newspaper. A year and a half
before, I had a clerkship which brought me in seven hundred dollars
a year; was easy in mind, respected by all my friends, looked upon
as an honest man by every one who knew me, and out of debt. I
started a newspaper in a moment of blind infatuation, and now I owed
above three thousand dollars, my good name was gone, and I was
dispirited, out of employment, afraid to walk the street lest I
should encounter some one I owed, and as wretched as a man could
well be. I soon after left the city, and sought employment hundreds
of miles away. So much for my experience in starting a newspaper.






THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS.





"Do not go out to-night, Amanda. The pavements are damp, and the air
is loaded with vapour."

"Indeed, ma, I must go."

"Amanda, there is no necessity for your attending this party; and
very urgent reasons why you should stay at home. Your cough is still
troublesome, and a little exposure might give it permanency. You
know that from your father you inherit a predisposition to disease
of the lungs."

"You only say that to alarm me."

"Not so, my child; I know your constitution, and know how fatally
the exposure of a night like this may affect you."

"But I'll wrap up warmly, and put on my India rubbers."

"A necessary precaution, if you will go out, Amanda. But I wish I
could persuade you to be guided by me. You know that the Bible says,
the way of transgressors is hard."

"I don't know how you will apply that to me, ma. I am transgressing
no law of divine appointment."

"Be not sure of that, Amanda."

"I do not understand you, ma."

"I will try and make my meaning clear. In our creation, as organized
beings, we were so constituted as to bear a certain relation to
every thing around us, and our bodily health was made dependent upon
this relation. Here then, we have a law of health, which may be
called a divine law--for there is nothing good that does not flow
from the Divine Creator. If we violate this law, we become
transgressors, and shall certainly prove the way we have chosen, in
so doing, to be a hard one."

"Oh, is that all?" said the daughter, looking up with a smile, and
breathing more freely. "I'll risk the consequences of breaking the
law you have announced."

"Amanda!"

"Don't be so serious, ma. I will wrap up close and have my feet well
protected. There is not the least danger of my taking cold."

"Well, you must do as you please. Still I cannot approve of your
going, for I see that there is danger. But you are fully of age, and
I will not seek to control you."

So strong was Amanda's desire to attend a large but select party,
that she went, in company with a young man who called for her,
notwithstanding the atmosphere was so humid and dense with fog, that
breathing became oppressive.

The rooms were crowded, and the air in them so warm as to cause the
perspiration to start from the fair brows of the merry dancers,
among whom none was more fair or more lively than Amanda Beaufort.
At eleven, after having passed an evening of much pleasure, she
started for home with her companion. She was so well wrapped up,
that she did not feel the cold, and her feet were protected from the
damp pavement by the impervious India rubber.

"I'm safe home, ma, after all!" she exclaimed with her merry ringing
laugh, as she bounded into the chamber where her ever-watchful and
interested mother sat awaiting her daughter's return.

"I am glad to see you back, Amanda," said Mrs. Beaufort kindly, "and
hope that no ill consequences will follow what I must still call a
very imprudent act."

"Oh I'm just as well as ever, and have not taken the least cold. How
could I, wrapped up so warm?"

Still, on the next morning, unaccountable as it was to Amanda, she
was quite hoarse, and was much troubled by a cough occasioned by a
slight but constant tickling in her throat. Accompanying these
symptoms was a pale anxious face and a general feeling of lassitude.

"I feared all this, Amanda," said her mother, with manifest concern.

"It's only a slight cold, ma. And, anyhow, I don't believe it was
occasioned by going out last night, I was wrapped up so warm. I must
have got the bed-clothes off of me in the night."

"What to one is a slight cold, my daughter, is a very serious affair
to another; and you are one of those who can never take a slight
cold without shocking the whole system. Your pale face and your
evident debility this morning show how much even this slight cold,
as you call it, has affected you. That you have this cold is to me
no subject of wonder. You were well wrapped up, it is true, and your
feet protected. Still, your face was exposed, and every particle of
air you inhaled was teeming with moisture. From dancing in a warm
room, the pores of your skin were all opened, and the striking of
moist chilly air upon your face could hardly fail of producing some
degree of cold. The most susceptible parts of your body are your
throat and lungs, and to these any shock which is received by the
system is directly conveyed. You cannot take cold in your hand or
foot or face, or any other part of your body, without your breast
sympathizing;--that you are hoarse, and have a slight cough, then,
is to me in no way surprising."

Amanda tried to make light of this, but every hour she felt worse
and worse. Her hoarseness, instead of diminishing, increased, and
her cough grew more and more troublesome. Finally, she was compelled
to go to bed, and have the physician called in.--"Is there any
danger?" asked Mrs. Beaufort, with an anxious and troubled
countenance, as the physician, after prescribing among other things
a stimulating application to the throat externally, was about
leaving the house.

"Is your daughter subject to these fits of hoarseness, ma'am?" he
asked.

"Yes, sir, whenever she takes cold."

"And does that frequent irritating cough always attend the
recurrence of hoarseness?"

"Always."

"Then, madam, it is but right that you should know, that such
results, following a slight cold, indicate a very great tendency to
pulmonary or bronchial affections. The predisposition existing, very
great care should be taken to prevent all exciting causes. With
care, your daughter may retain her health until she passes over the
most critical portion in the life of every one with such a
constitution as hers--that is, from twenty years of age until thirty
or thirty-five. Without great care and prudence during that time,
her constitution may be shattered so as to set all remedial efforts
at defiance."

"But, doctor, how is she now?" was Mrs. Beaufort's anxious inquiry.

"Not dangerous, madam, but still in a condition requiring care and
skill to prevent unfavourable consequences."

"Then do your best for her, doctor."

"You can rely on me for that, Mrs. Beaufort. Good morning."

With a heavy heart the mother returned to the sick chamber of her
daughter, and sat down by the bedside, thoughtfully, for a few
moments, while she held Amanda's hand, that was hot with fever. Then
recollecting herself, she left the room to prepare the stimulating
application which had been ordered.

It is remarkable how the whole system will sympathize with one
diseased part. The cold which Amanda had taken concentrated its
active effects upon her respiratory organs; but it was felt also in
every member, prostrating the whole body, and giving a sensation of
general suffering. Her head ached violently, and a burning fever
diffused itself over the entire surface of her body.

How sadly was she proving the truth of her mother's warning, when
she said to her, in the language of divine authority, "The way of
transgressors is hard."

She had violated a law of health, and in that violation, as in the
violation of every physical or moral law, the penalty of
transgression followed too surely.

It was a week before Amanda was able to go about again, and then her
pale cheeks, and debilitated frame indicated but too plainly the sad
consequences of a single imprudent act.

A few weeks after she had become restored apparently to her usual
health, as Amanda was dressing one morning to go out, her mother
said--

"Your clothes are a great deal too tight, Amanda."

"Oh no, I am not tight at all, ma. Julia Mason laces as tight again.
She gets her sister to draw her lacings for her, and she has to pull
with all her strength."

"That is wrong in Julia Mason, and yet half the pressure that she
can bear would seriously injure you."

"How can that be, ma? I am as healthy as she is."

"I will tell you, Amanda. She has a full round chest, giving free
play to the lungs; while your chest is narrow and flat. Without any
compression, the action of your lungs is not so free and healthy as
hers would be, laced as tightly as you say she laces. But when to
your natural conformation you add artificial pressure, the action of
your lungs becomes not only enfeebled, but the unhealthy action
induced tends to develop that peculiar form of disease, the
predisposition to which you inherit."

"That is only an idea of yours, ma. I am sure I have quite a full
bust," said Amanda, glancing down at her chest, and embracing it
with her hands.

"There you are mistaken. I have noticed this defect, with much
anxiety, ever since you were a child; and having had my attention
called to it, have frequently made comparisons, and have found that
you are remarkably narrow and flat, and what is more, have a
tendency to stoop, which still lessens the size of the cavity in
which the lungs play."

"Well, ma, my clothes are not tight. Just see here."

Mrs. Beaufort tried her clothes, and found them to be much tighter
than in her judgment was good for health.

"You are still unwilling, Amanda, to be governed by your mother,
where her wishes come in opposition to your pride or inclinations. I
know that you are compressing your chest too much, but you are not
willing to yield to my judgment. And yet I prescribe no arbitrary
rules, but endeavor to guide you by a rational consideration of true
principles. These you will not see; and the consequences that must
follow their violation will be the transgressor's reward."

"Indeed, indeed, ma, you are too serious. You are frightened at a
shadow. No one of my friends enjoys better general health than I
do."

"And so might the graceful maple say of the sturdy oak in the first
years of their existence. But long after the first had been humbled
beneath the hand of decay, the other would stand with its roots more
firmly imbedded in the earth, and its limbs battling the storms as
vigorously as ever."

Amanda made no reply to this, for she was suddenly struck with its
force. Still she only pretended to loosen her stays to satisfy her
mother, while the lacings remained as tense as ever.

It is unnecessary to trace, step by step, the folly of Amanda
Beaufort through a series of years--years that caused her mother
much and painful anxiety--up to her twenty-sixth summer, when, as a
wife and mother, she was suffering the penalty of her indiscretion,
proving too clearly the truth, that the way of transgressors is
hard. In spite of all her mother's warnings and remonstrances, she
had continued to expose herself to the night air in damp weather--to
attend balls thinly clad, and remain at them to a very late hour,
and to lace herself so tightly as to seriously retard the healthy
action of the vital organs. At the age of twenty-three she married.
A year after, the birth of a child gave her whole system, which had
indicated long before its feebleness, a powerful shock, from which
the reaction was slow and unsteady. The colour never came back to
her cheek, nor the elasticity to her frame. She had so long
subjected herself to the pressure of an artificial external support,
that she could not leave off her stays without experiencing such a
sinking, sickening sensation, as she called it, that she was
compelled to continue, however reluctantly, the compression and
support of tightly-laced corsets. And from frequently taking cold,
through imprudence, the susceptibility had become so great, that the
slightest dampness of the feet or the exposure to a light draught of
air was sure to bring on a cough of hoarseness. Her nervous system,
too, was sadly shattered. Indeed, every indication presented,
foreshadowed a rapid and premature decline--consequent, solely, upon
her thoughtless imprudence in earlier years.

"Shall I never feel any better, ma?" asked Amanda, one day, as a
faint sickness came over her, compelling her to resign her dear
little babe into the arms of its nurse, looking up at the same time
so earnestly and appealingly into her mother's face, that Mrs.
Beaufort's heart was touched with unwonted sorrow and tenderness.

"I hope so, Amanda," was replied, but in a tone that, though meant
to encourage, conveyed little hope to the bosom of her child.

"Every time little Anna nurses, I feel so sick and faint, that,
sometimes, it seems that I must give up. And yet the thought of
letting the dear little angel draw her food from another bosom than
mine, makes me fainter and sicker still. Can nothing be done to help
me, ma?"

"We must see the doctor and consult with him. Perhaps he can do
something," Mrs. Beaufort replied, in an abstracted tone.

That day the family physician was called in, and a long consultation
held. The result was, a decision that Amanda must get a nurse for
her child, and then try the effect upon her system of a change of
air and the use of medicinal waters. In a word, she must put away
her child and go to the Springs.

"Indeed, doctor, I cannot give up little Anna," said the invalid
mother, while the tears started to her eyes. "I will be very careful
of myself, and teach her to take a little food early, so as to
relieve me as much as possible. It seems as if it would kill me,
were I forced to resign to a stranger a mother's dearest privilege
and holiest duty."

"I can but honour your devotion to your child, Amanda," the old
family physician said, with a tenderness unusual to one whose daily
intercourse was with suffering in its varied forms. "Still, I am
satisfied, that for every month you nurse that babe, a year is taken
from your life."

There was in the tone and manner of the doctor a solemn emphasis,
that instantly aroused the young husband's liveliest fears, and sent
a chill to the heart of Mrs. Beaufort.

For a moment or two, Amanda's thoughts were turned inward, and then
looking up with a smile of strange meaning, while her eyes grew
brighter, and something like a glow kindled upon her thin, pale
cheek, she said, drawing her babe at the same time closer to her
bosom--

"I will risk all, doctor. I cannot forego a mother's duty."

"A mother's duty, my dear young friend," the physician replied, with
increased tenderness, for his heart was touched, "is to prolong, by
every possible means, her own life, for the sake of her offspring.
There are duties which none but a mother can perform. Reserve
yourself for these, Amanda, and let others do for your babe all that
can be done as well as you can perform it. Take my advice. Leave
little Anna at home with your mother and a careful nurse; and then,
with your husband and some female friend, upon whose judicious care
you can rely, go to the Springs and spend a few weeks."

The advice of the physician was taken, and the young mother, with
clinging, though lacerated affections, resigned to the care of a
hired nurse the babe over which her heart yearned with unutterable
tenderness.

Three weeks were spent at one of the Virginia springs, but little
apparent benefit was the result. The young mother grieved for the
loss of her babe so deeply and constantly, often giving way to
tears, that the renovating effects of changed air and medicinal
waters were counteracted, and she returned home, drooping in body
and depressed in spirits. Her infant seemed but half restored to
her, as she clasped it to a bosom in which the current of its young
life had been dried up. Sad, sad indeed was her realization of the
immutable truth, that the way of transgressors is hard!

Two years more of a painful and anxious existence were eked out, and
Amanda again became a mother.

From this additional shock she partially recovered; but it soon
became evident to all, that her shattered and enfeebled constitution
was rapidly giving way. Her last babe was but four months old, when
the pale messenger passed by, and gave his fearful summons.

It was toward the close of one of those calm days in September, when
nature seems pausing to note the first few traces of decay which
autumn has thrown upon garden, field, and forest, that Mrs.
Beaufort, and the husband of her daughter, with a few friends, were
gathered in the chamber of their beloved one, to see her die. How
sad, how very sad is the death-bed of the young, sinking beneath
premature decay! In the passing away of one who has met the storms
of life, and battled with them through vigorous maturity, and sinks
at last in the course of nature, there is little to pain the
feelings. But when the young and beautiful die, with all their
tenderest and earliest ties clinging to them--an event so unlooked
for, so out of the true order of nature--we can only turn away and
weep. We can extract from such an affliction but few thoughts of
comfort. All is dreary, and blank, and desolate.

"Bring me my children," the dying mother said, rousing up from a
state of partial slumber, with an earnest emphasis, that brought
both her mother and her husband to her bedside.

"What did you want, dear Amanda?" asked the husband, laying his hand
gently upon her white forehead, that was damp with the dews of
coming dissolution.

"My dear babes," she replied in a changed tone, rising up with an
effort. "My Anna and Mary. Who will be a mother to them, when I am
laid at rest? Oh, that I could take them with me!"

Tears came to the relief of her overwrought feelings, and leaning
her head upon the breast of her husband, she wept and sobbed aloud.
The infant was brought in by her mother, and laid in her arms, when
she had a little recovered herself.

"Oh, my baby! my sweet baby!" she said, with tender animation. "My
sweet, sweet baby! I cannot give you up!" And she clasped it to her
breast with an energy of affection, while the large drops rolled
over her pale cheek. "And Anna, dear little girl! where is my Anna?"
she asked.

Anna, a beautiful child, a few months past her second birth-day, was
brought in and lifted upon the bed.

"Don't cry, ma," said the little thing, seeing the tears upon her
mother's cheeks, "don't cry; I'll always be good."

"Heaven bless you and keep you, my child!" the mother sobbed,
eagerly kissing the sweet lips that were turned up to hers; and then
clasped the child to her bosom in a strong embrace.

The children were, after a time, removed, but the thoughts of the
dying mother were still upon them; and with these thoughts were
self-reproach, that made her pillow one of thorns.

"I now see and feel," said she, looking up into the face of her
mother, after having lain with closed eyes for about ten minutes,
"that all my sufferings, and this early death, which will soon be
upon me, would have been avoided, if I had only permitted myself to
be guided by you. I do not wonder now that my constitution gave way.
How could it have been otherwise, and I so strangely regardless of
all the laws of health? But, my dear mother, the past is beyond
recall; and now I leave to you the dear little ones from whom I must
soon part for ever. I feel calmer than I have felt for some time.
The bitterness of the last agony seems over. But I do not see you,
nor you, dear husband! Give me your hands. Here, let my head rest on
your bosom. It is sweet to lie thus--Anna--dear child! Mary--sweet,
sweet babe!"--

The lips of the young wife and mother moved feebly, and inarticulate
whispers fell faintly from her tongue for some moments, and then she
sank to sleep--and it was a sleep from which none wake in the body.

Thus, at the age of twenty-six, abused and exhausted nature gave up
the struggle; and the mother, who had violated the laws of health,
sank to the earth just at the moment when her tenderest and holiest
duties called loudest for performance.

Who, in this brief and imperfect sketch, does not recognise familiar
features? Amanda Beaufort is but one of a class which has far too
many representatives. These are in every town and village, in every
street and neighbourhood. Why do we see so many pale-faced mothers?
Why are our young and lovely females so soon broken down under their
maternal duties? The answer, in far too many cases, may be found in
their early and persevering transgression of the most palpable
physiological laws. The violation of these is ever followed, sooner
or later, in a greater or less degree, by painful consequences.
Sometimes life is spared to the young mother, and she is allowed to
linger on through years of suffering that the heart aches to think
of. Often death terminates early her pains, and her babes are left a
legacy to the cold charities of an unfeeling world. How sad, how
painful the picture! Alas! that it is a true one.






JUST GOING TO DO IT.





EVERY man has some little defect of character, some easily-besetting
sin that is always overtaking him, unless he be ever on the alert.
My friend, Paul Burgess, was a man of considerable force of mind;
whatever he undertook was carried through with much energy of
purpose. But his leading defect was a tendency to inertia in small
matters. It required an adequate motive to put the machinery of his
mind in operation. Some men never let a day pass without carefully
seeing after every thing, little or great, that ought to be done.
They cannot rest until the day's work is fully completed. But it was
very different with Paul. If the principal business transactions of
the day were rightly performed, he was satisfied to let things of
less consideration lie over until another time. From this cause it
occurred that every few weeks there was an accumulation of things
necessary to be done, so great that their aggregate calls upon his
attention roused him to action, and then every thing was reduced to
order with an energy, promptness, and internal satisfaction that
made him wonder at himself for ever having neglected these minor
interests so long. On these occasions, a firm resolution was always
made never again to let a day come to its close without every thing
being done that the day called for. It usually happened that the
first hour did not pass after the forming of this resolution without
seeing its violation--so strong was the power of habit growing out
of an original defect in the mind.

Every consequence in life is the natural result of some cause, and
upon the character of the cause always depends the nature of the
consequence. An orderly cause never produces a disorderly
consequence, and the converse of this is equally true. Every defect
of character that we have, no matter how small and seemingly
insignificant it may be, if suffered to flow down into our actions,
produces an evil result. The man who puts off the doing of a thing
until to-morrow that ought to be done to-day, injures his own
interest or the interest of others. This may not always clearly show
itself, but the fact is nevertheless true. Sometimes the
consequences of even the smallest neglect are felt most deeply.

My friend Paul had a very familiar saying when reminded by any one
of something that ought to have been previously done. "I was just
going to do it," or "I am just going to do it," dropped from his
tongue half-a-dozen times in a day.

"I wish you would have my bill ready by three o'clock," said a
customer to him, dropping in one morning.

"Very well, it shall be made out," replied Paul.

The customer turned and walked hurriedly away. He evidently had a
good deal of business to do, and but a small time to do it in.

Precisely at three, the man called, and found the merchant reading
the afternoon paper.

"Is my bill made out?" he asked.

"I am just going to do it," answered Paul, handing the paper towards
his customer. "Look over the news for a few moments while I draw it
off; it won't take me long."

"I am sorry," replied the customer, "for I cannot wait. I have three
or four more accounts to settle, and the boat leaves in an hour.
Send me the bill by mail, and I will remit you the amount.
Good-by"--offering his hand--"I hope to see you again in the fall."

Paul took the extended hand of his customer, and shook it warmly. In
the next moment he was standing alone, his ledger open before him,
and his eye resting upon an account, the payment of which was of
some importance to him just at that time. Disappointed and
dissatisfied with himself, he closed the ledger heavily and left the
desk, instead of making out the account and mailing it. On the next
day, the want of just the amount of money he would have received
from his customer kept him on the street two hours. It was three
weeks before he made out the account and sent it on. A month
elapsed, but no remittance came. He dropped his customer a line, and
received for answer that when last in the city he had bought more
goods than he intended, and consequently paid away all his cash;
business had not yet begun to stir, and thus far what little he had
sold had been for credit, but that he hoped soon to make him a
remittance. The next news Paul had of his customer was that he had
failed.

It was said of him that when a young man he became quite enamoured
of a reigning belle, who to great beauty added many far more
essential prerequisites in a good wife, not the least of which in
the eye of Paul was a handsome fortune left her by a distant
relative. To this young lady he paid very marked attentions for some
time, but he did not stand alone in the number of her admirers.
Several others were as much interested in gaining her favourable
regard as he was.

One day a friend said to him--"Paul, have you heard the news?"

"What is it?"

Sefton has offered himself to Miss P----."

"It a'n't possible! Why, I was just going to do it myself! Has she
accepted him?"

"So it is said."

"I don't believe it."

"I don't know how you will ascertain, certai