This honest couple are now busy in paying off
their debts, and laying by something for their old age. He facetiously
tells how he went to New York to have his watch stolen, and his boots
blacked like a looking glass; and she shows her Lake George diamond
ring, and tells how the steamboat was crowded, and how afraid she was
the boiler would burst, and always ends by saying, 'After all, it was
a toil of pleasure.'
However, it is not our farmers, who are in the greatest danger of this
species of extravagance; for we look to that class of people, as the
strongest hold of republican simplicity, industry, and virtue. It is
from adventurers, swindlers, broken down traders,--all that rapidly
increasing class of idlers, too genteel to work, and too proud to
beg,--that we have most reason to dread examples of extravagance. A
very respectable tavern-keeper has lately been driven to establish a
rule, that no customer shall be allowed to rise from the table till
he pays for his meal. 'I know it is rude to give such orders to honest
men,' said he, 'and three years ago I would as soon cut off my hand
as have done it; but now, travelling is so cheap, that all sorts of
characters are on the move; and I find more than half of them will get
away, if they can, without paying a cent.
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