York. His friends are sorry for him, and admit that he was
prudent and industrious in his business. "His family did it," they tell
you, shaking their heads. "They lived too fast. Took too much money to
run the house, to dress, and to keep up in society." Only the All Seeing
Eye can tell how many men who stand well in the mercantile community are
tortured continually by the thought that their extravagance or that of
their families is bringing them to sure and certain ruin; for not even in
New York can a man live beyond his actual means. They have not the moral
courage to live within their legitimate incomes. To do so would be to
lose their positions in society, and they go on straining every nerve to
meet the demands upon them, and then the crash comes, and they are
ruined.

Those who dwell in the great city, and watch its ways with observant
eyes, see many evils directly attributable to the sin of extravagance.
These evils are not entirely of a pecuniary nature. There are others of
a more terrible character. Keen observers see every day women whose
husbands and fathers are in receipt of limited incomes, dressing as if
their means were unlimited. All this magnificence is not purchased out
of the lawful income of the husband or father. The excess is made up in
other ways--often by the sacrifice of the woman's virtue. She finds a
man willing to pay liberally for her favors, and carries on an intrigue
with him, keeping her confiding husband in ignorance of it all the while.
She may have more than one lover--perhaps a dozen. When a woman sins
from motives such as these, she does not stop to count the cost. Her
sole object is to get money, _and she gets it_. It is this class of
nominally virtuous married and unmarried women that support the infamous
houses of assignation to be found in the city.

The curse of extravagance does not manifest itself in dress alone. One
cannot enter the residence of a single well-to-do person in the city
without seeing evidences of it. The house is loaded with the richest and
rarest of articles, all intended for show, and which are oftentimes
arranged without the least regard to taste. The object is to make the
house indicate as much wealth on the part of its owner as possible. It
makes but little difference whether the articles are worth what was paid
for them, or whether they are arranged artistically--if the sum total is
great, the owner is satisfied. It is a common thing