Young men are growing quite shameless about being in debt; and the
immorality extends throughout society. Tastes are becoming more
extravagant and luxurious, without the corresponding increase of means
to enable them to be gratified. But they are gratified, nevertheless;
and debts are incurred, which afterwards weigh like a millstone round
the neck. Extravagant habits, once formed and fostered, are very
difficult to give up. The existing recklessness of running into debt
without the prospect, often without even the intention, of paying the
debt, saps the public morals, and spreads misery throughout the middle
and upper classes of society. The tone of morality has sunk, and it will
be long before it is fairly recovered again.
In the mean time, those who can, ought to set their faces against all
expenditure where there are not sufficient means to justify it. The
safest plan is, to run up no bills, and never to get into debt; and the
next is, if one does get into debt, to get out of it again as quickly as
possible. A man in debt is not his own master: he is at the mercy of the
tradesmen he employs. He is the butt of lawyers, the byword of
creditors, the scandal of neighbours; he is a slave in his own house;
his moral character becomes degraded and defiled; and even his own
household and family regard him with pity akin to contempt.
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