QUIET CORNER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 666, 18 May 1929, Page 8

QUIET CORNER

£15,870 (Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler, Assistant City Missioner.) ■JJFKEEP" is always an important consideration when investing in a new car. When the cost of maintenance is excessive, then the article is dear at any price. As with cars , so with men. *’ Upkeep ” and depreciation are two very big considerations. So great has been the depreciation in some cases, that experts of twenty years ago, or less, are now occupying beds in “ shelters ” and seats in the domain. Quite recently, some very interesting statistics have been compiled through the finding of a number of diaries of one Thomas Frampion (or Flampion) of unknown address, who lived to the age of eighty-three, and died at the beginning of the present century. He appears to have been a man of moderate habits, and save for the expenditure of £3,000 on fines and legal expenses, does not seem to have gone to excess in any direction. He also appears to have enjoyed fairly good health, despite the fact that he spent £275 on doctor's fees. The unaudited account of the debit side of his affairs revealed an expenditure, in his life, of £15,870! When these figures are taken in conjunction with the amazing fact that the gross value of all that went to make up one whom the world knew as Frampion (or Flampion) was l,s 2d, it will be seen that the “ upkeep ” of a man is a long tcay in excess of what it costs to run a car. The ultra-materialist who sees no more in life than something which ends with the grave, must surely acknowledge that the spending of £15,870 on an article worth J t s 2d is very poor economy. It seems almost as absurd as £2.000 worth of dogs and horses going in pursuit of a fox worth 255. Of course our economist friends will rightly say that this is all ridiculous. The value of a man must be estimated, not upon the basis of the value of his chemical ingredients, but rather upon the value of his labour poicer, which power it must be added, was not a part of what the world saw of Frampion (or Flampion). What the world saw teas merely the four-and-twopenny vessel which held Thomas Frampion s (or Flampion's) immortal soul. The vessel has gone hack to the dust whence it came; his invisible ego is somewhere at large between this world and the next—at least, that’s how I view the matter.