ld, whilst
our pupils are young, teach them a love for exactness about property;
a respect for the rights of others, rather than a tenacious anxiety
about their own. When young people are of a proper age to manage money
and property of their own, let them know precisely what they can
annually spend; in whatever form they receive an income, let that
income be certain: if presents of pocket money or of dress are from
time to time made to them, this creates expectation and uncertainty in
their minds. All persons who have a fluctuating revenue, are disposed
to be imprudent and extravagant. It is remarkable, that the
West-Indian planters, whose property is a kind of lottery, are
extravagantly disposed to speculation; in the hopes of a favourable
season, they live from year to year in unbounded profusion. It is
curious to observe, that the propensity to extravagance exists in
those who enjoy the greatest affluence, and in those who have felt the
greatest distress. Those who have little to lose, are reckless about
that little; and any uncertainty as to the tenure of property, or as
to the rewards of industry, immediately operates, not only to depress
activity, but to destroy prudence. "Prudence," says Mr. Edwards, "is a
term that has no place in the negro vocabulary; instead of trusting to
what are called the _ground provisions_, which are safe from the
hurricanes, the negroes, in the cultivation of their _own_ lands,
trust more to plantain-groves, corn, and other vegetables that are
liable to be destroyed by storms. When they earn a little money, they
immediately gratify their palate with salted meats and other
provisions, which are to them delicacies. The idea of accumulating,
and of being economic in order to accumulate, is unknown to these poor
slaves, who hold their lands by the most uncertain of all
tenures,"[108] We are told, that the _provision ground_, the creation
of the negro's industry, and the hope of his life, is sold by public
auction to pay his master's debts. Is it wonderful that the term
prudence should be unknown in the negro vocabulary?

The very poorest class of people in London, who feel despair, and who
merely live to bear the evil of the day, are, it is said, very little
disposed to be prudent. In a late publication, Mr. Colquhoun's
"Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis," he tells us, that the
"chief consumption of oysters, crabs, lobsters, pickled salmon, &c.
when first in season, and when the pri