When Maginn, always drowned in debt, was
asked what he paid for his wine, he replied that he did not know,
but he believed they "put something down in a book." (15)
This "putting-down in a book" has proved the ruin of a great many
weakminded people, who cannot resist the temptation of taking
things upon credit which they have not the present means of paying
for; and it would probably prove of great social benefit if the
law which enables creditors to recover debts contracted under
certain circumstances were altogether abolished. But, in the
competition for trade, every encouragement is given to the
incurring of debt, the creditor relying upon the law to aid him in
the last extremity. When Sydney Smith once went into a new
neighbourhood, it was given out in the local papers that he was a
man of high connections, and he was besought on all sides for his
"custom." But he speedily undeceived his new neighbours. "We are
not great people at all," he said: "we are only common honest
people--people that pay our debts."
Hazlitt, who was a thoroughly honest though rather thriftless man,
speaks of two classes of persons, not unlike each other--those
who cannot keep their own money in their hands, and those who
cannot keep their hands from other people's. The former are
always in want of money, for they throw it away on any object that
first presents itself, as if to get rid of it; the latter make
away with what they have of their own, and are perpetual borrowers
from all who will lend to them; and their genius for borrowing, in
the long run, usually proves their ruin.
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