SECTION XV. Fear of Poverty.

The ingenious but sometimes fanciful Dr. Darwin, reckons the fear of poverty as a disease, and goes on to prescribe for it.

The truth is, there is not much real poverty in this country. Our very paupers are rich, for they usually have plenty of wholesome food, and comfortable clothing, and what could a Croesus, with all his riches, have more? Poverty exists much more in imagination than in reality. The shame of being thought poor, is a great and fatal weakness, to say the least. It depends, it is true, much upon the fashion.

So long as the phrase 'he is a good man,' means that the person spoken of is rich, we need not wonder that every one wishes to be thought richer than he is. When adulation is sure to follow wealth, and when contempt would be sure to follow many if they were not wealthy; when people are spoken of with deference, and even lauded to the skies because their riches are very great; when this is the case, I say, we need not wonder if men are ashamed to be thought poor. But this is one of the greatest dangers which young people have to encounter in setting out in life. It has brought thousands and hundreds of thousands to pecuniary ruin.

One of the most amiable features of good republican society is this; that men seldom boast of their riches, or disguise their poverty, but speak of both, as of any other matters that are proper for conversation. No man shuns another because he is poor; no man is preferred to another because he is rich. In hundreds and hundreds of instances have men in this country, not worth a shilling, been chosen by the people to take care of their rights and interests, in preference to men who ride in their carriages.

The shame of being thought poor leads to everlasting efforts to disguise one's poverty. The carriage—the domestics—the wine—the spirits—the decanters—the glass;—all the table apparatus, the horses, the dresses, the dinners, and the parties, must be kept up; not so much because he or she who keeps or gives them has any pleasure arising therefrom, as because not to keep and give them, would give rise to a suspicion of a want of means. And thus thousands upon thousands are yearly brought into a state of real poverty, merely by their great anxiety not to be thought poor. Look around you carefully, and see if this is not so.

In how many instances have you seen amiable and industrious families brought to ruin by nothing else but the fear they should be? Resolve, then, from the first, to set this false shame at defiance. When you have done that, effectually, you have laid the corner-stone of mental tranquillity.

There are thousands of families at this very moment, struggling to keep up appearances. They feel that it makes them miserable; but you can no more induce them to change their course, than you can put a stop to the miser's laying up gold.

Farmers accommodate themselves to their condition more easily than merchants, mechanics, and professional men. They live at a greater distance from their neighbors; they can change their style of living without being perceived; they can put away the decanter, change the china for something plain, and the world is none the wiser for it. But the mechanic, the doctor, the attorney, and the trader cannot make the change so quietly and unseen.

Stimulating drink, which is a sort of criterion of the scale of living,—(or scale to the plan,)—a sort of key to the tune;—this is the thing to banish first of all, because all the rest follow; and in a short time, come down to their proper level.

Am I asked, what is a glass of wine? I answer, it is every thing. It creates a demand for all the other unnecessary expenses; it is injurious to health, and must be so. Every bottle of wine that is drank contains a portion of spirit, to say nothing of other drugs still more poisonous; and of all friends to the doctors, alcoholic drinks are the greatest. It is nearly the same, however, with strong tea and coffee. But what adds to the folly and wickedness of using these drinks, the parties themselves do not always drink them by choice; and hardly ever because they believe they are useful;—but from mere ostentation, or the fear of being thought either rigid or stingy. At this very moment, thousands of families daily use some half a dozen drinks, besides the best, because if they drank water only, they might not be regarded as genteel; or might be suspected of poverty. And thus they waste their property and their health.

Poverty frequently arises from the very virtues of the impoverished parties. Not so frequently, I admit, as from vice, folly, and indiscretion; but still very frequently. And as it is according to scripture not to 'despise the poor, because he is poor,' so we ought not to honor the rich merely because he is rich. The true way is to take a fair survey of the character of a man as exhibited in his conduct; and to respect him, or otherwise, according to a due estimate of that character.

Few countries exhibit more of those fatal terminations of life, called suicides, than this. Many of these unnatural crimes arise from an unreasonable estimate of the evils of poverty. Their victims, it is true, may be called insane; but their insanity almost always arises from the dread of poverty. Not, indeed, from the dread of the want of means for sustaining life, or even decent living; but from the dread of being thought or known to be poor;—from the dread of what is called falling in the scale of society.

Viewed in its true light, what is there in poverty that can tempt a man to take away his own life? He is the same man that he was before; he has the same body and the same mind. Suppose he can foresee an alteration in his dress or his diet, should he kill himself on that account? Are these all the things that a man wishes to live for?

I do not deny that we ought to take care of our means, use them prudently and sparingly, and keep our expenses always within the limits of our income, be that what it may. One of the effectual means of doing this, is to purchase with ready money. On this point, I have already remarked at length, and will only repeat here the injunction of St. Paul; 'Owe no man any thing;' although the fashion of the whole world should be against you.

Should you regard the advice of this section, the counsels of the next will be of less consequence; for you will have removed one of the strongest inducements to speculation, as well as to overtrading.

I should be sorry to be understood as affirming that a majority of suicidal acts are the result of intemperance;—by no means. My own opinion is, that if there be a single vice more fruitful of this horrid crime than any other, it is gross sensuality. The records of insane hospitals, even in this country will show, that this is not mere conjecture. As it happens, however, that the latter vice is usually accompanied by intemperance in eating and drinking, by gambling, &c., the blame is commonly thrown, not on the principal agent concerned in the crime, but on the accomplices.