The evil does not stop with the moneyed classes. It descends to those who have nothing but their salary to live upon. It descends to the wives of clerks and shopmen. They, too, dress for respectability. They live beyond their means. They must live in gimcrack suburban villas, and "give parties." They must see what is going on at the theatres. Every farthing is spent so soon as earned,—sometimes before. The husband does not insure his life, and the wife runs into debt. If the man died to-morrow, he would leave his wife and children paupers. The money he ought to have saved during his life of toil, is spent on "respectability;" and if he leaves a few pounds behind him, they are usually spent in giving the thriftless husband a respectable funeral.
"Is that dress paid for?" asked a husband. "No." "Then you are allowing yourself to be clothed at another man's expense!" No woman is justified in running into debt for a dress, without her husband's knowledge and consent. If she do so, she is clothing herself at the expense of the draper. This is one of the things that worry a man who is trying to keep his head above water; and it is often sufficient to turn his heart against his wife and her extravagances. It is in this way that incomes are muddled away, and that life is rendered the scene of bitterness and discontent. This is especially the case when both husband and wife are alike spendthrifts.
By running into debt yourself, or by your allowing your wife to run into debt, you give another person power over your liberty. You cannot venture to look your creditor in the face. A double knock at the door frightens you: the postman may be delivering a lawyer's letter demanding the amount you owe. You are unable to pay it, and make a sneaking excuse. You invent some pretence for not paying. At length you are driven to downright lying. For "lying rides on debt's back."
What madness it is to run in debt for superfluities! We buy fine articles—finer than we can pay for. We are offered six months'—twelve months' credit! It is the shopkeeper's temptation; and we fall before it. We are too spiritless to live upon our own earnings; but must meanwhile live upon others'. The Romans regarded their servants as their enemies. One might almost regard modern shopkeepers in the same light. By giving credit, by pressing women to buy fine clothes, they place the strongest temptation before them. They inveigle the wives of men who are disposed to be honest into debt, and afterwards send in untruthful bills. They charge heavier prices, and their customers pay them,—sometimes doubly pay them; for it is impossible to keep a proper check upon long-due accounts.
Professor Newman's advice is worthy of being followed. "Heartily do I wish," he says, "that shop debts were pronounced after a certain day irrecoverable at law. The effect would be that no one would be able to ask credit at a shop except where he was well known, and for trifling sums. All prices would sink to the scale of cash prices. The dishonourable system of fashionable debtors, who always pay too late, if at all, and cast their deficiencies on other customers in the form of increased charges, would be at once annihilated. Shopkeepers would be rid of a great deal of care, which ruins the happiness of thousands."[1]
[Footnote 1: Lectures on Political Economy, p. 255.]
A perfect knowledge of human nature is in the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." No man and no woman ever resists temptation after it has begun to be temptation. It is in the outworks of the habits that the defence must lie. The woman who hesitates to incur a debt which she ought not to incur, is lost. The clerk or apprentice who gloats over his master's gold, sooner or later appropriates it. He does so when he has got over the habitual feeling which made any approach to it an impossibility. Thus the habits which insinuate themselves into the thousand inconsiderable acts of life, constitute a very large part of man's moral conduct.
This running into debt is a great cause of dishonesty. It does not matter what the debt is, whether it be for bets unsettled, for losses by cards, for milliners' or drapers' bills unpaid. Men who have been well educated, well trained, and put in the way of earning money honestly, are often run away with by extravagances, by keeping up appearances, by betting, by speculation and gambling, and by the society of the dissolute of both sexes.
The writer of this book has had considerable experience of the manner in which young men have been led from the way of well-doing into that of vice and criminality. On one occasion his name was forged by a clerk, to enable him to obtain a sum of money to pay the debts incurred by him at a public-house. The criminal was originally a young man of good education, of reasonable ability, well-connected, and married to a respectable young lady. But all his relatives and friends were forgotten—wife and child and all—in his love for drink and card-playing. He was condemned, and sentenced to several years' imprisonment.
In another case the defaulter was the son of a dissenting minister. He stole some valuable documents, which he converted into money. He escaped, and was tracked. He had given out that he was going to Australia, by Southampton. The Peninsular and Oriental steamer was searched, but no person answering to his description was discovered. Some time passed, when one of the Bank of England notes which he had carried away with him, was returned to the Bank from Dublin. A detective was put upon his track; he was found in the lowest company, brought back to London, tried, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment.