"--_Charles Lamb_.
People do not know what troubles they are brewing for themselves when
they run into debt. It does not matter for what the debt is incurred. It
hangs like a millstone round a man's neck until he is relieved of it. It
presses like a nightmare upon him. It hinders the well-being of his
family. It destroys the happiness of his household.
Even those who are in the regular receipt of large incomes, feel
crippled, often for years, by the incubus of debt. Weighed down by this,
what can a man do to save--to economise with a view to the future of his
wife and children? A man in debt is disabled from insuring his life,
from insuring his house and goods, from putting money in the bank, from
buying a house or a freehold. All his surplus gains must go towards the
payment of his debt.
Even men of enormous property, great lords with vast landed estates,
often feel themselves oppressed and made miserable by loads of debt.
They or their forefathers having contracted extravagant habits--a taste
for gambling, horseracing, or expensive living,--borrow money on their
estates, and the burden of debt remains. Not, perhaps, in the case of
strictly entailed estates--for the aristocracy have contrived so that
their debts shall be wiped out at their death, and they can thus gratify
their spendthrift tastes at the expense of the public--the estates going
comparatively unburdened to the entailed heir.
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