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ECONOMISING.

T

HE wealth of the world consists in the accumulated gains of labour. Little by little, the face of a country is improved, comforts are obtained, and prosperity prevails-all a result of saving. Among individuals, as with nations, a condition of comfort and independence is reached only by the process of spending less than is gained. Some, from a concourse of fortunate circumstances, are able to save much more than others; but there are few situations in which a young man resolute in advancing himself, is unable so to economise means as to save something regularly from his clear gains.

I am no friend to parsimony, and would advise you to avoid everything like shabbiness. You are not called on to save at the expense of character. There is a time for a little judicious liberality, as well as for extreme carefulness. What all writers on this subject insist upon, is the principle of regulated expenditure. As a general rule, something is to be saved periodically. You are, if possible, to be a degree wealthier at the end of every successive year, not only because your acquisitions will be personally advantageous, but because a saving of gains is beneficial to the society of which you form a part.

It is inconceivable what an amount of money is thrown away by young people in what are called 'trifling sums'-in shillings, sixpences, threepences, and even pennies. Much more, indeed, is expended by them in this small way, than in sums of a larger amount; mostly, too, in a way that tends to no real

good, generally on mere superfluities-things which might, by the least possible exertion of self-denial, be dispensed with and never missed. This remark applies more especially to that class of youths familiarly recognised as 'young men about town,' who, with two or three spare hours per day on their hands, and two or three spare shillings at all times in their pockets, are in a manner beguiled into the practice of spending money by way of pastime. We do not here allude to those who have been born to a competency, although even these will not, we think, be the worse of attending to us for a few minutes. Our remarks are meant for the other, and by far the larger portion of the rising generation, who, by inheritance or otherwise, have just sufficient to give them a good education, and put them in a 'respectable way of doing.'

Spending money uselessly, is, in some, merely a bad habit; in others, it is a matter of vanity. In all, however, it originally proceeds chiefly from thoughtlessness and want of calculation as to the amount of all the little items spent when added together, and how deeply, though almost imperceptibly, they eat into the amount of their annual receipts. The sums, viewed separately, appear so very insignificant! And as to looking at them in the aggregate, that is never attempted; for who could have patience to keep an account of all the odd pence, threepences, sixpences, and shillings, expended from day to day, in all varieties of ways, for a whole twelvemonth? The time thus employed would be a greater waste than the money spent! It is thus, however, that many a young man, who is in the habit of receiving his earnings in that pernicious and deceitful way of 'just as he might need them,' finds himself confounded on discovering, at the twelvemonth's end, that he had not only overdrawn his due, but had not a penny laid by to answer the obligations which then were to be liquidated. After the first pause of surprise, he begins to comfort himself with the suspicion that there must be an error somewhere in the accounts

either pro or con. He examines every item individually with a nervous and irritable impatience; adds them together, first upwards and then downwards; but, alas! his skill in the science of notation avails him nothing; the quotient still comes out the same, with most unsympathising accuracy. How could this possibly happen? And then he proceeds to review his mode of living-possibly with some degree of self-approbation. His fare has been uniformly frugal, his lodgings cheap, and he is addicted to no dissipated or expensive habits. He may perhaps recollect of treating himself to various luxuries; but still everything added together does not come within £10 or £12 of the deficit; and these £10 or £12 would just clear off his tailor's and shoemaker's bills, and make him a free man. How so much money could have slipped through his fingers, he is utterly at a loss to conceive; he entirely forgets all the odd threepences, sixpences, and shillings, thrown away in the manner we have alluded to; or, if a vague recollection of a few such things does come athwart him, he rejects the idea of their having occasioned so large a deficit as an utter impossibility. There, however, it stares him in the face, and must be made up. His heart sinks within him, and he experiences that, when felt for the first time, perhaps most intolerable and oppressive of all human sensations-the consciousness of being in debt. This is a perilous moment in his career. There is nothing so apt to crush the buoyant spirit of a young man of sensitive feelings to the very earth, or drive him into excess, as this first torturing feeling of being at the mercy of another-a debtor. The parents, guardians, or other wellwishers of a young man who has thus, through folly, thoughtlessness, or even a temporary lapse into dissipation, placed himself in such a predicament, would do well to get him extricated from it as speedily as possible. Lay what restrictions they will on him afterwardsalthough, even in them, regard must be paid to the temper and disposition to be operated on, and that they be laid on less as

a punishment for the past, than a precaution against future errors; but, as they wish him well, let them draw him back from the edge of the abyss in the meantime. He is far more likely to set about a reformation of any evil habit with resolution and effect, when unoppressed with the harassing consequences of his former indiscretion. Besides, his good resolves are quickened and kept alive by the glowing feeling of gratitude he cherishes towards his succourer, whose good opinion he will fear to lose by a second act of folly.

In the catalogue of human follies, there is none for which the instructors of youth ought to impress a greater abhorrence on the minds of their pupils, than-getting in debt. But if the mischief be already to a certain extent committed, the next object ought decidedly to be-how to remedy it. There are many young men, naturally of the best dispositions and moral habits, in a manner driven into the broad path by an ill-judged over-severity and illiberality being practised towards them. Let us not be supposed for a moment as trying to palliate the follies of youth; quite the reverse. But there never was a saying of more practical wisdom than that of the late Dr Gregory, that it is impossible to place old heads on young shoulders;' and he who thinks, by means of sheer coercion and threats, to instil into sixteen the gravity and solidity of sixty, had needs beware that he does not either altogether extinguish the spirit he seeks, but to moderate or excite it into a fiercer blaze.

Your spender from vanity, again, is a less hopeful, and altogether less interesting character than the foregoing. His folly is more systematic, more selfish-for vanity and selfishness are always concomitant-and when once fairly into the stream, his besetting sin will deter him from making any effort to retrieve himself. He will suffer any private inconvenience, and resolutely shut his heart against the importunities of a dun, rather than abate one jot of the showiness of his exterior, or

abridge any one of his habitual ostentatious indulgences. Thus do we daily see hundreds of 'genteel young men,' in the principal walks of our city, who, by their air, think themselves the very lords-paramount of creation, and yet are shamefully and senselessly spending money they never gained, and never had the wit to gain; squandering upon momentary and dishonourable gratifications an endless succession of what they consider 'small sums'-that is to say, sowing upon the winds, to be never again reaped, what, if husbanded with moderate economy, might in larger forms have added to their real dignity, and perhaps their prosperity in life. Thousands thus live without ever acquiring the reputation they perhaps aim at-that of being thought in high circumstances; while others, who spend seldomer, but to better purpose, get a good character for a fifth of the money.

To young men entering on a professional career, it should be an object of high ambition to attain as great a proficiency as possible in the business to which they have attached themselves. In general, this proficiency is only to be acquired by leaving the place of their birth, or where they have been bred, and going to a town where there is more to be learned. Young artisans should, if possible, always see as much as they can of the way of working at their respective handicrafts. But to travel to a distance, to remove from one place to another, is attended with a certain expense; and how is this expense to be borne, unless something has been saved? It very often happens, that, for want of so small a sum as twenty shillings, a working-man is completely hampered in his designs of bettering his condition, by removal to a better locality, and is likewise totally unable to improve himself by going to see better modes of handicraft.

These should form strong arguments for young men attempting to save a little money off their salaries. True, their salaries are frequently small; but if there be a sincere desire to rise in

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