tims are, in
general, what may be fairly called insane; but their insanity almost
always arises from the dread of poverty; not from the dread of a want of
the means of sustaining life, or even decent living, but from the dread
of being thought or known to be poor; from the dread of what is called
falling in the scale of society; a dread which is prevalent hardly in
any country but this. Looked at in its true light, what is there in
poverty to make a man take away his own life? he is the same man that he
was before: he has the same body and the same mind: if he even foresee a
great alteration in his dress or his diet, why should he kill himself on
that account? Are these all the things that a man wishes to live for?
But, such is the fact; so great is the disgrace upon this country, and
so numerous and terrible are the evils arising from this dread of being
thought to be poor.

60. Nevertheless, men ought to take care of their means, ought to use
them prudently and sparingly, and to keep their expenses always within
the bounds of their income, be it what it may. One of the effectual
means of doing this is to purchase with ready money. ST. PAUL says,
'_Owe no man any thing_:' and of his numerous precepts this is by no
means the least worthy of our attention. _Credit_ has been boasted of as
a very fine thing: to decry credit seems to be setting oneself up
against the opinions of the whole world; and I remember a paper in the
FREEHOLDER or the SPECTATOR, published just after the funding system had
begun, representing 'PUBLIC Credit' as a GODDESS, enthroned in a temple
dedicated to her by her votaries, amongst whom she is dispensing
blessings of every description. It must be more than forty years since I
read this paper, which I read soon after the time when the late Mr. PITT
uttered in Parliament an expression of his anxious hope, that his 'name
would be inscribed on the _monument_ which he should raise to '_public
credit_.' Time has taught me, that PUBLIC CREDIT means, the contracting
of debts which a nation never can pay; and I have lived to see this
_Goddess_ produce effects, in my country, which Satan himself never
could have produced. It is a very bewitching Goddess; and not less fatal
in her influence in private than in public affairs. It has been carried
in this latter respect to such a pitch, that scarcely any transaction,
however low and inconsiderable in amount, takes place in any other way.
There is a trade in Lon