EXTRAVAGANCE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1373, 18 October 1886, Page 3

EXTRAVAGANCE.

If there were ao each thing as extravagance, every man nrght have a shanty of his own, a wife, some chilcr . , a cow giving milk, lOC dollars in *hs bank, t ham and fl.nr enough to do him all summer, and no man might be under t' e necessity of using a clay D'pe, or of smoking some other man a tobacco ; nor ought a man be brought so low in the world as to have reason to wiah that he could sol his wife and all her relations for 50 dollars apiece, cash down.

If there was nc such thing as extravagance there would be no strikes, no Knight' of Labor, no monopolists ; poorhouses would be unknown, and the word “hunger” might be so rarely used that the man who didn’t read much might have to look in the dictionary to see what it means.

If there were no snob thing as extravagance there would be a common pos'ession of wea'h, and writers of every class might write all they had a mind to without using the word ‘ monojo'y" when refart ng to the “root of all evil." Jsy GouM would be a railway contractor, or he woul * own a small farm, and help the wife to feed the hens, miikj the cows, make soap, and do lots of things around the house ; or he wou'd keep a small store, and take in eggs, wheat, potatoes, butter, and oou skins, In exchange for tea, sugar, hardware and ssleratus Old Msckay, too, could get along without a top bnggy snd silverplated harness Ho could go to church in clean patched overalls, and wipe hie faca with a red cotton handkerchief, and fee! (very inch as near heavtn ns he does now ; and as between him his fellow-m rtala there could be no abvssof social difference, he could sfford to be ftfiible, so that if he cairn to Newbury and mot Tim O’Hagen, ho c uld stand and talk about the war that was to be, the price of iron, take a “chaw, ’ and ask Tun to take another

It ia extravagance that makes some comparatively rich and that thousands comparatively p >or A man work? hard for fifty dollars or so ; then in a hour of vice and diaslpa'im he fhngs it all away. Mia appearaict becomes loa'hsonio, and he is despised on every hand. His gaunt and starving wife in som' black and lonely hovel looks in the cupboard and sees no bread. She hears her naked child cry, “Mamma, I am hungry ! ” her heart breaks, she sighs for the grave, she wishes she were there and her children wi h her. Heaven views the scene and weeps ; hell views the scene and rej dees. Bur, in the meantime, through the exrravaganos of that man and others of his class, the wealth cf somebody els 3 is increasing, and the daughters of somebody else play the piano, put on sty e, and turn up heir noses a* rags and poverty when they mett them on the street,

Through the extravagance and prodigality of tsn thousand men, one man bee m-s secure r-f prodigi us wealth He builds for himself a palao' rich and grand. He drives prancing steeds His equi paces win royal, magnificent as those of '• "ferae and Marius. His wife acd daughters shine in all the splendour of superabundant wealth* Everything ar-und them is superb, vdupuout, affecting, noble, He is raised to a golden height, and grovelling mortals look up and think him great. But where are they through whom all these were secure d 1 Loft homeless and va ;rant on the rude rocks of indigence and distress ! I see them new; along they come, a ghastly train, like the phantoms of some wret hed dream O, the glassy eyes; the gaunt cadaverous jiws; the pinched and hungry looks ; the foulseme rags ; the shaking limbs ; the palsied frames ; the low, monotonous whines of distress.

One of them tells me this story. The story of the rest Is the same in substance. Ho says, “ I was once well enough off. I had a home ; enough to eat ; enough to drink ; enough to wear ; but I was reckless and eitr .vagant . It never occurred to me then that I might some day be old, or sick, or Infirm, or decrepit and helpless. Would you give me ten cents. It would buy me a loaf. I have had nothing to eat for twenty-four hours.”—Christopher Grip in Marquette Mining Journal.