Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 109, August 17, 1895

DISCRIMINATION.
Young Man from the Country ( with the affable condescension he supposes marks the Man about Town ). 'Morning, Coachman! Streets rather busy this Morning, eh?
Metropolitan Driver. Yuss—a bit the usual way, Sir. 'Ow's 'Ops lookin'?
( Modern Version of the Story of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices. )
Mr. Goodchild was admittedly the most successful of merchant princes—not only financially, but morally. From a boy the great trader had advanced on the road of commerce by leaps and bounds. His parents were of humble birth and in poor circumstances, and yet he had risen to the top of the tree of commercial prosperity. Mr. Goodchild had shops, warehouses, wharfs, and a fleet of ships. He had never had a reverse. All he had touched had turned to gold. This is so well understood that a description of his enormous wealth in detail would be entirely superfluous.
Do you really want to know the secret of my pecuniary triumph? asked Mr. Goodchild, when he was questioned on the subject.
Why, certainly, was the reply. How is it that your companion, the idle apprentice, came to such signal grief?
Because he was always reading the worst of literature. He knew the history of every felon recorded in the Newgate Calendar , original edition, and added chapters. That brought my 'colleague as a boy' to such dire disaster.
And you never perused the pernicious documents?
Never. And I can prove my statement to the hilt.
You never perused them! And why not?