nd unfit them for good citizenship. I believe it would
be better for society if all inheritance of wealth were forbidden, and
every boy and girl required to begin life with a few hundred dollars,
and gain the position they deserved by their own abilities alone.

This reclamation of millionnaire estates by the commonwealth would not
be so necessary but for the fact that the world has been ruled by
false principles, and in all past ages millionnaires have, with few
exceptions, regarded their vast possessions as something on which the
public had no claim in justice, as being the true sources of
wealth--something on which the brotherhood of humanity had no
claim--something which was not a sacred trust for the benefit of
mankind--something which they should clutch with an iron grasp, as
long as possible, to keep it intact and unbroken, and still speaking
from the grave, hold it protected from all the claims of humanity, to
magnify their own names in their descendants, and keep their offspring
the lords dominant of society,--thus making it really a curse instead
of a blessing; and as neither the moralists nor the clergy have ever
taught them anything else, such is still their tendency, with a few
such exceptions as Peter Cooper and George Peabody. But when society
substitutes rational ethics and simple justice for old traditions and
debasing customs, the destruction of wealth will be _recognized as a
crime_, no matter how it was obtained; and such profligates as the
Prince of Wales, who spends half a million yearly, and then calls upon
his avaricious mother for one or two millions to silence the clamor of
creditors whom he has defrauded, will be no longer feasted, admired,
and imitated, for justice will be embodied in law and the race of
profligates will have been exterminated.

If any owner of these hoards, when he is compelled to give them up,
politely throws out five per cent. or even two per cent. for something
that he considers worthy, it is received with great laudation as
something not to have been expected. A Cleveland millionnaire was
lauded for a petty donation, less than he had expended on his old
wife's laces. As philanthropists millionnaires are generally great
failures. They did not study the public welfare through life, and they
do not know how to promote it; their benefactions generally go to
institutions that perpetuate the old order of mediaeval conservatism,
and delay the progress of humanity. They are inc