The metropolis is infested with so many and such different borrowers, and they are so much a part of the community, that they may be divided and subdivided into classes.
The first class is composed of those who, being in business, draw largely on the future at a venture, but with the expectation of paying in due season. They are usually hopeful, even sanguine, though less prudent and conscientious than they should be, and more considerate of themselves than of others. These men turn their confidence and audacity to profit, provided fortune favors them; but if she be adverse, they go down, and drag their lenders with them. They rise again, however, in new fashions for borrowing, and once more challenge circumstances to do their behest. If they win at last, they boast of their energy, perseverance, and courage, and despise men who have been more conscientious and less lucky.
The second class have legitimate callings, but substitute credit for capital. They borrow largely without concerning themselves in regard to liquidation. They are not positively, though they may be considered negatively, dishonest. They will pay if they can conveniently; but if they cannot, they refuse to fret, resigning their financial burdens to those compelled to bear them. They have the support of an easy selfishness, and when their creditors complain, they invite them to be patient, and wait for the day of judgment.
The third class shift from one occupation to another, and in every shifting are liable to deterioration. Half the time they are out of business, but they are always going into something new that promises admirably. They dwell in to-morrow, and defer the fulfilment of all their engagements to that uncertain fragment of time. They borrow right and left, careless of whom, never reckoning the amount they have taken or the covenant they have made. They will pay if they are dunned; but if not, they will scatter their obligations with their breath. After a certain range of experience in effecting private loans, they learn that many persons would rather suffer loss than ask for a return of money, and they take advantage of this sensibility. They fortify their want of principle by affirming that a debt is not due until demanded, and they always pretend to forget what it would be unpleasant to remember. They are poor in performance. They invariably want extensions, and regard to-day as if it were non-existent. Catch them with a full purse, and represent your right to a part of its contents, and you may count upon payment long deferred.
The fourth class are constitutionally dishonorable—the impersonation of selfishness. They have no intention of paying, even at the time of borrowing, and never will pay so long as they can avoid it. They talk a good deal of their integrity, for the express purpose of imposing upon their hearers. They consider every man a potential creditor, and try to influence him to that end. They are good for what they pay cash for. Their word ranks with their bond, and both are worthless. They can be depended upon to meet their obligations only when compulsion is employed.
The fifth class are still worse; for they not only regard borrowing as a virtue, but they deem payment a vice. To defraud anybody seems to give them a positive pleasure, and they never felicitate themselves so much as after a successful swindle. They are earnestly opposed to discharging any and every obligation, however sacred the circumstances under which it is contracted. They are among the very few of their kind who would rather throw away money than pay a debt with it; and a creditor whom they have been obliged to satisfy, they reckon ever after as an enemy. By some perversion of understanding and derangement of morals, they have come to believe that the world’s goods belong to the most ingenious swindlers, and that they are entitled to such distinction. This class seldom have any position, commercial or otherwise, but prey upon the public without mercy.
THE MOST PROFESSIONAL OF BORROWERS.
ENERGY OF THE CLASS.
The sixth class, so far as known, have never done anything but borrow. They are the most professional of professionals. Their only idea of property is to get whatever they can without an equivalent. Work is hateful to them, and fraud delightful. They struggle hard for the reward of dishonesty, and receive it with a feeling akin to enthusiasm. They have never had the slightest credit; and how they contrive to dupe their fellows, year after year, is one of the mysteries of humanity. Physiognomy and manners proclaim against them; and yet they accomplish such results through dishonesty as upright men would vainly strive for by honorable means. Continual practice renders them perfect in the art of cozening. They are able to espy a loan in a face as a banker is to detect alloy in coin. They appear to have an intuitive knowledge of the contents of an unseen pocket-book, and of its owner’s special weakness, which they proceed at once to play upon; they can get money out of a hunks, and have been known to raise the wind in the dead calm of a millionaire.
These principal classes include subdivisions too numerous and diverse to mention. Borrowers change their grade as they advance in meanness and recklessness. They may begin in the first rank and fall to the lowest. They will do this year what they would not have done last. They are always liable to sink, even below the level they occupy. They require a broad field for operations, because the proper victims cannot be gathered twice by the same hand. They droop their crest as they accumulate infamy, and exercise more and more hypocrisy and deeper and bolder falsehood as their career continues.