DUTY
By Samuel Smiles
CHAPTER THREE
HONESTY - TRUTH
Honesty and truthfulness go well together. Honesty is truth, and truth is honesty. Truth alone may not constitute a great man, but it is the most important element of a great character. It gives security to those who employ him, and confidence to those who serve under him. Truth is the essence of principle, integrity, and independence. It is the primary need of every man. Absolute veracity is more needed now than at any former period in our history.
Lying, common though it be, is denounced even by the liar himself. He protests that he is speaking the truth, for he knows that truth is universally respected, whilst lying is universally condemned. Lying is not only dishonest, but cowardly. "Dare to be true," said George Herbert; "nothing can ever need a lie." The most mischievous liars are those who keep on the verge of truth. They have not the courage to speak out the fact, but go round about it, and tell what is really untrue. A lie which is half the truth is the worst of lies.
There is a duplicity of life which is quite as bad as verbal falsehood. Actions have as plain a voice as words. The mean man is false to his profession. He evades the truth that he professes to believe. He plays at double dealing. He wants sincerity and veracity. The sincere man speaks as he thinks, believes as he pretends to believe, acts as he professes to act, and performs as he promises.
"Other forms of practical contradiction are common," says Mr. Spurgeon; "some are intolerantly liberal; others are ferocious advocates for peace, or intemperate on intemperance. We have known pleaders for generosity who were themselves miserably stingy. We have heard of persons who have been wonderful sticklers for 'the truth' - meaning thereby a certain form of doctrine - and yet they have not regarded the truth in matters of buying and selling or with regard to the reputations of their neighbours, or the incidents of domestic life."*
(* ' The Bible and the Newspaper,' 1878 )
Lying is one of the most common and conventional of vices. It prevails in what is called "society." Not at home is the fashionable mode of reply to a visitor. Lying is supposed to be so necessary to carry on human affairs that it is tacitly agreed to. One lie may be considered harmless, another slight, another unintended. Little lies are common. However tolerated, lying is more or less loathsome to every pure-minded man or woman. "Lies," says Ruskin, "may be light and accidental, but they are an ugly soot from the smoke of the pit, and it is better that our hearts should be swept clean of them, without our care as to which is largest or blackset."
"Lying abroad for the benefit of one's country" used to be the maxim of the diplomatist. Yet a man should care more for his word than for his life. When Regulus was sent by the Carthaginians, whose prisoner he was, to Rome, with a convoy of ambassadors to sue for peace, it was under the condition that he should return to his prison if peace were not effected. He took the oath, and swore that he would come back.
When he appeared at Rome he urged the senators to persevere in the war, and not to agree to the exchange of prisoners. That involved his return to captivity at Carthage. The senators, and even the chief priest, held that as his oath had been wrested from him by force, he was not bound to go. "Have you resolved to dishonour me?" asked Regulus. "I am not ignorant that death and tortures are preparing for me; but what are these to the shame of an infamous action, or the wounds of a guilty mind? Slave as I am to Carthage, I have still the spirit of a Roman. I have sworn to return. It is my duty to go. Let the gods take care of the rest." Regulus returned to Carthage, and died under torture.
"Let him that would live well," said Plato, "attain to truth, and then, and not before, he will cease from sorrow." Let us also cite a passage from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius: "He who acts unjustly acts impiously; for since the universal nature has made rational animals for the sake of one another, to help one another according to their deserts, but in no way to injure one another, he who transgresses his will is clearly guilty of impiety towards the highest divinity. And he, too, that lies is guilty of impiety to the same divinity, from the universal nature of all things that are; and all things that are have a relation to all things that come into existence. And further, this universal nature is named Truth, and is the prime cause of all things that are true. He, then, who lies intentionally is guilty of impiety, inasmuch as he acts unjustly by deceiving; and he also who lies unintentionally, inasmuch as he is at variance with the universal nature, and inasmuch as he disturbs the order by fighting against the nature of the world; for he fights against it, who is moved of himself to that which is contrary to truth, for he has received powers from nature, through the neglect of which he is not able now to distinguish falsehood from truth. And, indeed, he who pursues pleasure as good, and avoids pain as evil, is guilty of impiety."*
(* 'Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.' Translated by George Long, M.A.' pp.144-5.)
Truth and honesty show themselves in various ways. They characterize the men of just dealing, the faithful men of business, the men who do not deceive you to their own advantage. Honesty is the plainest and humblest manifestation of the principle of truth. Full measures, just weights, true samples, full service, strict fulfilment of engagements, are all indispensable to men of character.
Take a common case. Sam Foote had reason to complain of the shortness of the beer served to him at dinner. He called the landlord, and said to him: "Pray, sir, how many butts of beer do you draw in a month?" "Ten, sir," replied the publican "And would you like to draw eleven if your could?" "Certainly, sir." "Then I will tell you how," said Foote: " fill your measure! "
But the case goes farther than this. We complain of short weights and adulteration of goods. We buy one thing and get another. But goods must sell; if with a profit, so much the better. If the dealer is found out, the customer goes elsewhere. M. Le Play, when he visited England many years ago, observed with great pleasure the commercial probity of English manufacturers. "They display," he said, "a scrupulous exactitude in the quantity and quality of their foreign consignments."
Could he say the same now? Have we not heard in public courts of the depreciation of our manufactures - of cotton loaded with china clay, starch, magnesium, and zinc? We have seen the loading, and therefore know what it is. The cotton becomes mildewed, discoloured, and therefore unsaleable. The mildew is a fungus which, when developed by moisture, lives and grows upon the starch. China was one of the many marts for English-made cotton. But when the mildew appeared, the trade vanished.
There is a Chinese proverb to the effect that, "the conjuror does not deceive the man who beats the gong for him." The Chinaman is as great a deceiver as we are. He puts iron filings into his tea, and water into his silk. He is therefore quite awake to the deceptions of others. "The consequence is," says the British Consul at Cheefoo, "that our textiles have got a bad name, and their place is being supplied by American manufacturers. American drills, though forty per cent, dearer, are driving English drills out of the market." We are no longer trusted. The English brand used to be a guarantee of honesty. It is so no longer.
It is the same in India. The English cotton won't wash. When the clay and starch are rinsed out, it becomes a rag. The Indians grow cotton. The Indians are clever workmen, with ingenious, subtle fingers. They can spin an even thread as well as the workwomen of Manchester. Capital has accumulated in India; mills have been built; and the Indians now manufacture for themselves.
All this is well known in the manufacturing districts. It is spoken of at public meetings. Sizing, and starching, and loading cotton cloth with China clay, is known everywhere. Mr. Mellor, M.P., denounced the deception of the adulterating manufacturers. They seem to believe that the consuming inhabitants of the globe are all fools excepting themselves. He mentioned the case of an engineer, who, in crossing the Indian Ocean, was decorating his turban with muslin. "Is that English?" he was asked. "No; it is from Switzerland. The English makes my fingers stick - it is gummy." This is how we are losing our trade. This is how we are encountering bad times.
American cotton goods sell in London, Manchester, and elsewhere, at a fair profit. Indian cotton goods sell in China and Australia; though Bombay twist sells at a higher price than English yarns. The local cotton manufacture of India is now equal to the whole home and foreign production of Manchester. Is not this a startling fact? We are now giving our artisans technical education. What will technical education do against wholesale cheating and lying? A young woman buys a reel of cotton marked 250 yards. When she works it out with her skin and bone, she finds it to contain only 175 yards. What can she think of the truthfulness of her countrymen?
The deterioration of the standard of public men, of public morality, and of political principles, is undeniable. When Baron Dupin visited England, about sixty years ago, he observed with admiration the courage, the intelligence, and the activity of our commercial men. "It is not alone the courage, the intelligence, the activity of the manufacturer or merchant which maintain the superiority of the productions and commerce of their country; it is far more their wisdom, their economy, and, above all, their probity. If ever, in the British Islands, the useful citizen should lose these virtues, we may be sure that for England, as well as for any other country, notwithstanding the protection of the most formidable navy, notwithstanding the foresight and activity of diplomacy the most extended, and of political science the most profound, the vessels of a degenerate commerce, repulsed from every shore, would speedily disappear from those seas whose surface they now cover with the treasures of the universe, bartered for the treasures of the industry of the Three Kingdoms."*
(* ' The Commercial Power of Great Britain,' vol. i., Introduction, p.xi.)
The employer is not only grievously hindered by the law; he is still more grievously hindered by strikes. When trade seems to improve, the men turn out and strike for more wages. Mills are closed, iron-furnaces are damped out, building ceases, and everything is at a standstill. We throw our means and opportunities away; and the foreigner thrives upon our recklessness. It is more than unfortunate - it is ruinous - that workmen should consider their employers as their born enemies.
But what of the quality of the work done by the workmen? Time was when men threw their heart and soul into their work - when they took pride in the quality of their work - in doing that which Chaucer describes when he says - work "must be done at leisure, parfaitlie." But what have we now? Work done scampingly - without skill, without conscience, without industry. Because of this, tunnels fall in, iron bridges give way, and buildings tumble down. Houses are left half finished, drains are left untrapped, and disease speads abroad. O careless, thoughtless British workmen! What lives you have taken, what families you have made desolate! So that your work is done, you care not how it is done. You have not put your best into it; you have not put yourself into it. The work is done anyhow, so that it may pass muster. All this dishonest and dishonourable. Poor British workman! It is not altogether your own fault. You have been brought up without knowledge. You have been educated without sympathy. You thought the world was against you, whilst it has often sympathized with you.
All bad work is lying. It is thoroughly dishonest. You pay for having work done well; it is done badly and dishonestly. It may be varnished over with a fair show of sufficiency, but the sin is not discovered until it is too late. So long as these things continue, it is in vain to talk of the dignity of labour, or of the social value of the so-called working man. There can be no dignity of labour where there is no truthfulness of work. "Dignity does not consist in hollowness and in light-handedness, but in substantiality and in strength. If there be flimsiness and superficiality of all kinds apparent in the work of the present day more than in the work of our forefathers, whence comes it? From eagerness and competition, and the haste to be rich."*
(* F.R. Conder. C.E..in 'Good Words.' )
Even the Polynesians have found us out. When Bishop Patteson was voyaging among the South Sea Islands on his mission of mercy, he found that the natives refused to by our goods. "A mere Brummagem article," he said, "that won't stand wear, is quite valueless in their eyes. Whatever is given to them, be it cheap or dear, though it cost but a shilling, must be good of its kind. For example, a rough-handles, single-blade knife, bought for a shilling, they fully appreciate; but a knife with half-a-dozen blades they would almost throw away." So Dr. Livingstone found that the natives of Africa refused to buy English iron, because it was "rotten."
Socrates explained how useful and excellent a thing it was that a man should resolve on perfection in his own line, so that, if he be a carpenter, he will be the best possible carpenter; or if a statesman, that he will be the best possible statesman. It is by such means that true success is achieved. Such a carpenter, Socrates said, would win the wreath of carpentering, though it was only a shavings.
Take the case of Wedgwood, who had the spirit of the true worker. Though risen from the ranks, he was never satisfied until he had done his best. He looked especially to the quality of his work, to the purposes it would serve, and to the appreciation of it by others. This was the source of his power and success. He would tolerate no inferior work. If it did not come up to his idea of what it should be, he would take up his stick, break the vessel, and throw it away, saying, "This won't do for Josiah Wedgwood."
Of course he took the greatest care to ensure perfection, as regarded geometrical proportions, glaze, form, and ornament. He pulled down kiln after kiln to effect some necessary improvement. He learnt perfection through repeated failures. He invented and improved almost every tool used in his works. He passed much of his time at the bench beside his workmen, instructing them individually. How he succeeded, his works will show.
Another instance of true honesty and courage may be mentioned in the case of a great contractor. We mean Thomas Brassey. Even when scamping was common, he was always true to his word and work. The Barentin viaduct of twenty-seven arches was nearly completed, when, loaded with wet after a heavy fall of rain, the whole building tumbled down. The casualty involved a loss of 30,000 pounds. The contractor was neither morally nor legally responsible. He had repeated protested against the material used in the structure, and the French lawyers maintained that his protest freed him from liability. But Mr. Brassey was of a different opinion. He had contracted, he said, to make and maintain the road, and no law should prevent him from being as good as his word. The viaduct was rebuilt at Mr. Brassey's cost. His life is one of the hightest examples we can offer to this generation.
We have had good times and bad times; but the result is always the same. We take little thought for the future. We only economize when we have no more money to spend upon selfish gratifications. An employer at Bradford recently said: - Some five or six years ago, we were in a state of great commercial prosperity. It almost carried the trading classes off their heads. People were becoming rapidly rich, and so bent were they on amassing money, that they seemed to think there would be no end to it. The working classes joined in the prosperity, and they lost their heads as well as those above them. They struck for higher wages, and for a time they got what they desired. They limited production, and urged that the fewer hours they worked, the more money they would get for their labour, and the better they would be off. But then came the period of depression, and no efforts of strikes or unions could stave it off. He urged upon the workmen that if they wished to see a return to better times, they must honestly and faithfully do their duty, and alter their present manner of doing slippery work, and doing as little as possible for their money.
At a conference of working men in Edinburgh, one of the speakers upheld the advantages of strikes. "My theory is," he said, "work as little as you possibly can, and get as high a wage as you possibly can." This theory, if worked out, would produce the entire demoralization of labour; it would make it idle, inefficient, and disloyal. Another speaker took an opposite view. He said: "The existence of unions for the purpose of striking was immoral in the extreme. The other day, he was going along a street in Edinburgh, when he met a man walking very slowly and easily along. A boy passing, said to him, 'You're taking it very easy the day.' 'It's my master's time,' said the man. The man, " he added, "had the idea forced into him that, by the striking system, the master's injury was their benefit; and the effect of the whole system was, that a piece of work well done could not be got."
It would be well if the working men could be got to see the position in which they actually stand. They are now competing with the working men all over the Continent and in America. It used to be supposed that the superiority of English labour would overcome all foreign competition. Whatever it may have once been, this is now an utter fallacy. The foreigners have all the advantages of our best machinery, with the latest improvements. They now manufacture machines for themselves. They have learned to work as fast and as well as English operatives. They work on Sunday and Saturday alike. In France they work 72 hours a week, while in this country they work only 56 hours a week. And the wages of the foreign artisans are about 25 per cent. less than those in England. The English work turned out is not so good and honest as that of France. How can we maintain competition in the face of these facts? The French and German cotton manufactures come into England free, while ours cannot get into French and German ports without high prohibitive duties. We have lost the monopoly of the trade, which we once possessed, and it is not likely that we can ever regain it. Our cotton trade will soon be confined to home supply; and if the articles are not made good and cheap, they will be driven out of use by the French and American fabrics. It will be the same with every other product.
Mr. Holyoake spoke in the right spirit when he rebuked the mistakes of unionism, and expressed his opinion - no doubt that of the elite of the working classes - as to the duty of sympathy and sincerity between master and man. "Recalling to my recollection," he said, "fourteen years' experience as a workman, I say now that were I secured wages for eight hours' daily labour, which would supply a moderate competence before the strength of life was spent, and were I left at liberty to produce the best work I could, so that my pride and taste and character should be in my handicraft, and I had a reasonable assurance of continuing in my situation while I discharged my duties in good faith, I should now prefer that state to any other. I should be the friend of the master; his fame would be my pride, his interests mine. He would have the care and the profit which is the honest due of care, and I should have content and leisure for learning and study."
This nation, no doubt, possesses the best material in the world. We have men who are willing to work, and able to work. But we want good work, not scamped work. We have strikers against receiving low wages; but we have no strikers against doing bad work. It is better work, not longer hours, that is wanted. It is dishonest and insincere labour that is discrediting English articles in all of the great markets of the world. "Work," again says Mr. Holyoake, "has small pleasure, because it has little pride. It ought to be impossible for employers to find men who will execute shabby work. It is a sort of crime against the hounour of industry, a fraud by connivance upon the purchaser. Nothing shows more plainly the state of honour in artisanship than the fact that we have all sorts of trade unions to come to the support of a man who refuses low wages, but not one union professedly to succour a man who refuses to do dishonest work." Let such a system continue, and all the science and art schools in the world could not maintain England as a great commercial country.
The same cry comes to us from America. The truth of the proverbial saying, "There is no God west of the Missouri," is everywhere manifest. The almighty dollar is the true divinity, and its worship is universal. A Sacramento paper says that "American are a money-loving and money-making people. They have no Queen or aristocracy to rule them; their aristocracy is money. The lust of wealth overrides every other consideration. Fraud in trade is the rule instead of the exception. We poison our provisions with adulteration. We even poison our drugs with cheaper materials. We sell shoddy for wool. We sell veneering for solid wood. We build wretched sheds of bad brick and bad mortar and green wood, and call them houses. We rob and cheat each other all round, in every trade and business, and we are all so bent on making money that we have not time to protest against the more palpable frauds, but console ourselves by going forth and swindling somebody else. We pay a very heavy price for our national idiosyncrasy. We are rapidly destroying our national sense of honesty and integrity. In those benighted and slavish countries which are ruled by monarchs, they contrive to live a great deal cheaper and a good deal better than we can. There, fraud is regarded as criminal, and the impostor, when detected is punished severely. But those are old fogey countries, who know nothing about liberty. They have no Fourth of July, no Wall Street, no codfish or shoddy aristocracies. They do not recognize the fact that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (which means money), entitles every man to cheat his neighbours, and bars redress."
Strange to say, the Americans are beginning to think that the badness of work, and the unwillingness to do good work, is, to a certain extent, the outcome of the common school system. Everybody is so well educated that he is above doing manual labour. There are no American apprentices, and no American servants. We do not speak without authority. A writer in Scribner's Monthly says that "the Americans make a god of their common school system. It is treason to speak a word against it. A man is regarded as a foe to education who expresses any doubt of the value of it. But we may as well open our eyes to the fact that in preparing men for the work of life, especially for that work depending on manual skill, it is a hindrance and a failure. It is mere smatter, veneering and cram."
The writer of the article says that the old system of apprenticeship has grown almost entirely into disuse. The boys are at school, and cannot be apprenticed to a trade. Hence most mechanical work is done by foreigners. The lad who has made a successful beginning of the cultivation of his intellect does not like the idea of getting a living by the skilful use of his hands in the common employments of life. He has no taste for bodily labour. He gets some light employment, or tries to live upon his wits.*
(* " If it is asked why there is not a universal effort made for the restoration of the apprentice system, we reply that there is a very ugly lion in the way. A piano-maker complained that he could not get men enough to do his work, the reason being that his men belonged to a Society that had taken upon itself to regulate the number of apprentices that he could be permitted to instruct in the business. They had limited the number to one, who was utterly insufficient to supply the demand, and the master was powerless. There was no other way open to him but to import his workmen, already instructed, from abroad. In brief, there is a comspiracy amongst Society men all over the country, to keep American boys out of the useful trades, and industrial education is thus under the band of an outrageous system, which ought to be put down by the strong hand of the law. It is thus seen that, while the common school naturally turns the great multitudes of its attendants away from manual employments, those who still feel inclined to enter upon them have no freedom to do so, because a great army of Society men stand firmly in the way, overruling employers and employed alike." - Scribner's Monthly Illustrated Magazine for March 1880. )
So said Longfellow. The village smithy stands there no longer. When General Armstrong, of the coloured college of Hampton, went to the north in search of blacksmiths, he found no Americans to engage. Every blacksmith was an Irishman. And in the next generation of Irishmen, every boy will be so well educated that he will not put his hands to any bodily labour. A New York clergyman possessing a large family, to correct this spreading influence, recently declared fron his pulpit that he intended that every lad of his family should learn some mechanical employment, by which, on an emergency, he might get a living. Rich and poor should alike be taught to work, skilfully if possible; for it is quite as likely that the rich will become poor, as that some of the poor will become rich; and that is a poor education which fails to prepare a man to take care of himself and his dependants throughout life.
We have lately been complaining of the badness of trade, but has not much of it happened through our own misdoing? In the arithmetic of the counting-house, two and two do not always make four. How many tricks are resorted to - in which honesty forms no part - for making money faster than others! Instead of working patiently and well for a modest living, many desire to get rich all at once. The spirit of the age is not that of a trader, but of a gambler. The pace is too fast to allow of any one stopping to inquire as to those who have fallen out by the way. They press on; the race for wealth is for the swift. Their faith is in money. It needs no prophet to point out the connexion of our distress with the sin of commercial gambling and fraud, and of social extravagance and vanity, of widespread desolation and misery.
"My son," said a father, "ye're gawn out into t'warld: ye may be wranged; but if it comes to that, chet rather then be cheted." Another said, "Make money - honestly, if you can; but if not, make it." A third said, "Honesty is better than dishonesty; I've tried both." Of course we quote these phrases as being at utter variance with truth and honesty. But it is to be doubted whether higher principles of conduct prevail in many of the commercial classes of life. A young man begins business. He goes on slowly yet safely. His gains may be small, but they are justly come by. "A faithful man shall abound with blessings; but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent: he hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty may come upon him."
In large commercial towns, young men are amazed at the splendour of the leaders of trade. They are supposed to be enormously rich. Every door opens to them. They command the highest places in society. They give balls, parties, and dinners. Their houses are full of wine of the choicest vintage. Their conversation is not great; it is mostly about wine, horses, or prices. They seem to sail upon the golden sea of a great accumulated fortune.
Young business men are often carried away by such examples. If they have not firmness and courage, they are apt to follow in their footsteps. The first speculation may be a gain. The gain may be followed by another and they are carried off their feet by the lust for wealth. They become dishonest and unscrupulous. Their bills are all over the discount market. To keep up their credit they spend more money upon pictures, and even upon charities. Formerly, greedy and unjust men seized the goods of others by violence. To-day, they obtain them by fraudulent bankruptcies. Formerly, every attempt was open; to-day, everything is secret, until at length the last event comes, and everything is exposed. The man fails; the bills are worthless; the pictures are sold; and the recreant flies to avoid the curses of his creditors.
In one bankruptcy case, over 39,000 pounds were stated in the accounts as expenses for orphanages and charities! "I have the authority of the accountant," said a speaker at a meeting of the creditors, "for stating that for four or five years this firm has been purchasing goods to an enormous extent, and flooding the eastern markets, when they were hopelessly insolvent, carrying on a reckless, I will say a gambling, trade for financial purposes, or, in common parlance, to 'raise the wind.' The munificent charity of an insolvent estate appears to me ghastly. It reminds me of a remark of our bishop, that there are some men amongst us who build churches out of part of their ungodly gains to pave their way to heaven."
Who has not heard of the failure of banks originating in gambling and fraud, with the result of lost fortunes and family reverses amongst all classes of shareholders? Schiller says, "It is daring to embezzle a million, but it is great beyond measure to steal a crown: the sin seems to lessen as the guilt increases." Yet the embezzlement of millions has not been thought extraordinary of recent years. Money has been taken from bank deposits to buy up railway shares, or to buy land in some remote colony, the speculation for a rise often ending in a ruinous fall. Then "the bank broke" and the downfall came, ending in ruin and desolation to a thousand homes. Men have been driven insane, and women have prayed to be delivered from their lives.
"Pity us, God! there are five of us here,
With threescore years on the youngest head,
Five of us sitting in sorrow and fear -
Well for our widowed one she is dead.
Could they not wait a while? we will not keep them long;
We could live on so little, too, cheerful and brave,
But to leave the old house, where old memories throng,
For the Poorhouse! oh, rather the peace of the grave!" *
(* Dr. Walter C. Smith, the author of these lines, appeared at a meeting at Edinburgh, and said that "he had received a large number of letters on the subject of the bank failure, and one class of correspondents asked him how he could be ' a converted man' seeing that he was making so much ado about filthy lucre. The present calamity unhappily involved a great deal of distress to his fellow-men, and for his own part he had no great sympathy with a religion which had so little sympathy with the sufferings of their brethren. He felt ashamed that such frauds should have been committed among them by men of trust, but he hoped that their dear country would come out of the gloom with its honour unstained, and enter on a career of active industry with an atmosphere purer and healthier than before. He had been asked whether a case of five elderly sisters, about whom many had read, was a real case. It was a real case, and he should never forget the time when he first saw those ladies, nine days after the bank broke. During that time a meal had never been cooked in that house, their clothes had never been taken off their backs, and they had never lain in their beds, they were so bewildered and amazed, vaguely hoping that the good God would come and take them away from the evil that was to follow." )
Men already rich, but hasting to be richer, throw themselves into wild speculations with the view of making money more rapidly than before. With what result? Only to land them in hopeless bankruptcy. Many instances are at hand to prove this. A rich banker of Tipperary - a radical and a demagogue - got himself returned to Parliament, and in course of time, to quiet him, he was made a Lord of the Treasury. A coronet seemed to gleam before his eyes. But in this he was disappointed. He had launched into Italian, American, and Spanish railways, and lost heavily. Then he began to forge deeds, conveyances, and bills for hundreds of thousands of pounds. His clever but unprincipled schemes failed; his bills were dishonoured, his ruin was imminent. Late at night he entered his study, and took from it a phial of prussic acid. He strayed to Hampstead Heath. drank the poison, and died.
What scenes there were in the streets of Thurles and Tipperary after his death was announced. Old men weeping and wailing for the loss of everything; widows kneeling on the ground and asking God if it could be true that they were beggared for ever. And yet it was true. The banker and Lord of the Treasury had lost the last shilling of his bank, and plunged from fraud into still deeper fraud to recoup his losses, which only served to spread upon those around him a wilder and more hopeless ruin.
One of the last letters that he wrote was to his cousin. He said, " To what infamy I have come step by step, heaping crime upon crime I am the cause of ruin, and misery, and disgrace to thousands. Oh, how I feel for those on whom this ruin must fall! I could bear all punishment, but I could not bear to witness their sufferings. It must be better that I should not live. Oh that I had never quitted Ireland! Oh taht I had resisted the first attempts to launch me into speculation! I might then have remained what I was, honest and truthful. I weep and weep now, but what can that avail?"
Nations and states are dishonest as well as individuals. Their condition is to be measured by the state of their 3 per cents. Spain and Greece and Turkey are dishonoured in the commercial world. Spain was killed by her riches. The gold which came pouring into Spain from her vanquished colonies in South America depraved the people, and rendered them indolent and lazy. Nowadays a Spaniard will blush to work; he will not blush to beg. Greece has repudiated her debts for many years. Like Turkey, she has nothing to pay. All the works of industry in those countries are done by foreigners.
Much better things might have been hoped from Philadelphia and the other American States which repudiated their debts many years ago. These were rich States, and the money borrowed from abroad made them richer, by opening up roads and constructing canals for the benefit of the people. The Rev. Sydney Smith - who lent his money, "the savings from a life's income made with difficulty and privation" - let the world know of his loss. He addressed a remonstrance to the House of Congress at Washington, which he afterwards published. "The Americans," he said, "who boast to have improved the institutions of the Old World, have at least equalled its crimes. A great nnation, after trampling under foot all earthly tyranny, has been guilty of a fraud as enormous as ever disgraced the worst King of the most degraded nation of Europe."
The State of Illinois acted nobly, though it was poor. It had borrowed money, like Philadelphia, for the purpose of carrying out internal improvements. When the inhabitants of rich Philadelphia set the example of repudiating their debts, many of the poorer States wished to follow in their footsteps. As every householder had a vote, it was easy, if they were dishonest, to repudiate their debts. A convention met at Springfield, the capital of the State, and the repudiation ordinance was offered to the meeting. It was about to be adopted, when it was stopped by an honest man. Stephen A. Douglas (let his honourable name be mentioned!) was lying sick at his hotel, when he desired to be taken to the convention. He was carried on a mattress, for he was too ill to walk. Lying on his back he wrote the following resolution, which he offered as a substitute for the repudiation ordinance:-
"Resolved that Illinois will be honest, although she never pays a cent."
The resolution touched the honest sentiment of every member of the convention. It was adopted with enthusiasm. It dealth a death-blow to the system of repudiation. The canal bonds immediately rose. Capital and immigration flowed into the State; and Illinois is now one of the most prosperous States in America. She has more miles of railway than any of the other States. Her broad prairies are one great grainfield, and are dotted about with hundreds of thousands of peaceful, happy homes. This is wht honesty does.
The truth is, we have become too selfish. We think of ourselves far more than of others. The more devoted to pleasure, the less we think of our fellow-creatures. Selfish people are impervious to the needs of others. They exist in a sort of mailed armour, and no weapons, either of misery or want, can assail them. Their senses are only open to those who can minister to their gratifications. "They are men," says St. Chrysostom, "who seem to have come into the world only for pleasure, and that they might fatten this perishable body....At sight of their luxurious table the angels retire - God is offended - the demons rejoice - virtuous men are shocked - and even the domestics scorn and laugh....The just men who have gone beofe left sumptuous feasts to tyrants, and to men enriched by crime, who were the scourges of the world."
We no longer know how to live upon little. A man must have luxury about him. And yet a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things he possesseth; he must live honestly, though poor. Retrenchment of the useless, the want even of the relatively necessary, is the high-road to Christian self-denial, as well as to antique strength of character. That of which our age stands most in need, is a man able to gratify every just desire, and yet to be contented with little. "A great heart in a little house," syas Lacordaire, "is of all things here below, that which has ever touched me most. Happy the man who soweth the good and the true. The harvest will not fail him!"
Here is a fine specimen of honesty and truthfulness on the part of a poor German peasant. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre has told the story in his ' Etudes de la Nature.' He was serving as an engineer under the Count de Saint-Germain during his campaign in Hesse, in 1760. For the first time he became familiar with the horrors of war. Day by day he passed through sacked villages and devastated fields and farmyards. Men, women and children were flying from their cottages in tears. Armed men were everywhere destroying the fruits of their labour, regarding it as part of their glory. But in the midst of so many acts of cruelty, Saint-Pierre was consoled by a sublime trait of character displayed by a poor man whose cottage and farm lay in the way of the advancing army.
A captain of dragoons was ordered out with his troop to forage for provisions. They reached a poor cabin and knocked at the door. An old man with a white beard appeared. "Take me to a field," said the officer, "where I can obtain forage for my troops." "Immediately, sir," replied the old man. He put himself at their head, and ascended the valley. After about half an hour's march a fine field of barley appeared. "This will do admirably," said the officer. "No," said the old man; "wait a little , and all will be right." They went on again, until they reached another field of barley. The troops dismounted, mowed down the grain, and trussing it up in bundles, put them on their horses. "Friend," said the officer, "how is it that you have brought us so far? The first field of barley that we saw was quite as good as this." "That is quite true," said the peasant, "but it was not mine!"