called upon to endure; while the latter enjoys continually more and more the comforts and wholesome pleasures of life, often to an honored old age, and leaves those who are dear to his heart safe: against all the ills of poverty and want. Few courses of life can be sadder than the one, few more praiseworthy and honorable than the other.

The great problem of ages has been, "How shall we get money? Equally great and important is another problem, How shall we keep what we already have?" or, with an extended significance, how can we so arrange our affairs that we, our children, and their children cannot possibly come to want? or, as finally reduced, how can we obtain real and lasting safety of investment and security of income? The former problem may perhaps be solved alone, but whoever shall solve the latter problem will also, unwittingly perhaps, solve the former.

If such absolute safety of investment were possible of attainment, the ideal family would then consist of a succession of happy generations, each steadily increasing in wealth, refinement, cultivation, and usefulness. But the tendency and spirit of our institutions is opposed to such a possibility, as leading to a dangerous concentration of the nation's wealth, and the Law itself raises an insurmountable obstacle to such a possibility in its prohibition of entails and perpetuities. Each generation must to a certain extent shift for itself, and it is our business to provide prudently for ourselves and our generation, while we do our best to furnish a favorable start for the generation which is to follow us.

The first and fundamental rule, as well for the preservation as for the accumulation of property, is that we shall, at all times, live well within our incomes, or, in other words, that we shall lay by certain portions of our incomes regularly each year. This principle applies equally to persons of ample means who seek merely to preserve what is already possessed, and to persons in humble conditions who strive providently to acquire protection against the ills and incapacity of old age. It follows from the universal truth that in this life there can be no standing still, that we must either

continually advance or continually recede, either increase or diminish steadily our fortunes.

The disposition to save money, when properly governed,a reasonable spirit of frugality,- must itself be regarded as one of the cardinal virtues. It presupposes self-denial and self-government, and gives birth to and nurtures consequential virtues, which will be found to be both numerous and excellent. The spendthrift is necessarily selfish, indolent, reckless, unreliable, and often dishonest, lawless, and depraved; but the frugal man is unselfish, industrious, steady, and more often than otherwise honest, law-abiding, and trustworthy. Even that exponent of a deranged type of mankind whose indiscriminating craze permits of no intermediate position, the miser, is a quiet, peaceful, law-abiding citizen.

But aside from such general considerations, there are practical reasons of the highest importance for the necessity of this fundamental rule. Unexpected misfortunes, unlookedfor expenditures, the constantly diminishing value of money regarded as a loan, the uncertainties of income derived from the safest and most permanent kinds of investments,― these possibilities require our utmost care and apprehension, and we are indeed in dangerous condition if we are not, in some measure, prepared to meet them when they come.

The following illustration will serve to impress more strongly upon the mind the practical importance of these statements: Less than a quarter of a century ago, little difficulty was to be encountered in loaning money on the security of first-class mortgages in certain vicinities at an interest of seven per cent. per annum, and there was little or no loss from idle capital waiting for investment; while at the present time really first-class loans in the same vicinities are difficult to make at an interest of five per cent. per annum, and there is considerable loss from idleness. Briefly it may be said, and in general, that the percentage of actual returns from such loans has, within a score of years, decreased from seven to about four and one half. Suppose that a certain person was, twenty years ago, possessed of a property

of fifty thousand dollars, all of which was invested in mortgage-securities. The annual income from this property would have been thirty-five hundred dollars, while at the present time it would not be more than $2250. If, during the twenty years, the entire income from the property had been consumed, the foolish and improvident person would now bemoan the loss of about one third of her income (equivalent, practically, to the loss of one third of her principal), in addition to the necessity of contemplating a possible repetition of the cruel process. On the other hand, if this person had, during the twenty years, wisely allowed herself an annual expenditure of two thousand dollars only, carefully preserving and investing the balance of her income, her original property of fifty thousand dollars would have increased to about eighty-five thousand dollars, and her annual income, at the low rate of four and one half per cent. interest, would now amount to $3825 — an increase of nearly ten per cent. over the original income, notwithstanding the great decrease in the rate of interest.

Again, let us suppose a person to be the owner of four pieces of real estate upon which are erected four similar buildings, and that each of these buildings returns a net annual rental of one thousand dollars. The annual income of the owner will therefore be four thousand dollars. If, now, owing to business depression, one or more of the buildings shall become vacant and idle, or the owner shall be obliged to lower the rents, or an unexpected assessment shall be made against the property, the income of the owner will be very seriously, though temporarily, impaired (it may be reduced one half or three fourths, or it may disappear altogether for a time), and, unless the owner has laid by considerable portions of her income during the years gone by, she will find herself in the position of one suddenly reduced from comfortable circumstances to a distressing poverty.

As nearly as can be estimated, the net returns from firstclass investments generally in the older civilized portions of the world are not materially greater than three per cent. per annum. Our own country is rapidly growing old, and

we must look forward to the inevitable result, i. e., a decrease in the percentages of incomes from investments. Computing from the best available data, we may conclude that the extent of decrease in our incomes for which we must eventually provide will be equal to about one third of the incomes. It follows generally that all persons who, in our times and country, shall regularly consume more than two thirds of their incomes are surely travelling upon the road to poverty.

It has been suggested and may be believed by some that the rule which requires the laying by of portions of incomes each year should not apply to those fortunate persons (if there be such) whose incomes are so very large that they will be satisfied at any time to have them decreased by considerable amounts, and are therefore at liberty to spend their entire incomes for a considerable number of years. Such a belief, however, can result only from the arguments of the spendthrift and profligate; for if the millionaire's income is expended upon other than proper requirements it is wasted and squandered.

It may also be said, unfortunately with a far greater appearance of reason, that there are many cases in which incomes are so small that it will be difficult or even primarily impossible to apply the rule. That this statement is true cannot be doubted, but, while such cases may awaken our compassion, they cannot alter the truth of the inexorable rule. Persons whose incomes are only sufficient for their sustenance are not independent, but poor; they are living beyond their means, and unless either their incomes can be increased by additional earnings or their necessary expendi tures can be decreased, the painful consequences of violating the rule must be endured. Thus there is, it appears, no means of avoiding or circumventing the rule; it must be lived up to, and it may therefore be laid down as an invariable precept, in words as harsh and practical as these: Live well within your income or die poor.

In order that we may live within our incomes it is necessary that we shall know very nearly the exact amounts of our incomes and expenditures, and for this purpose the

keeping of careful accounts of all receipts and disbursements is indispensable. An ordinary account-book, ruled on the left of each page with one column for the dates and on the right with three columns for thousands, hundreds, and cents respectively, will be sufficient for the purposes of the account. Omitting the first page, the account should be started on the second page, in order that the pages which are devoted to receipts shall be opposite the pages for disbursements for corresponding dates. All receipts (of income only, no part of the principal being considered in this account) should be put down, with brief descriptions and dates, upon the pages upon the left hand, and all expenditures of income, with their proper dates and descriptions, are similarly to be put down upon the pages upon the right hand.

Some care must be exercised that receipts shall not be entered twice in the account-book. A very common mistake occurs in the following manner: A check may be received from an agent for rents collected, the check deposited in the bank, and the amount of the check properly entered among the receipts in the account-book. Some days afterward the owner of the account-book, requiring cash, may draw her own check, cash it at the bank or elsewhere, and carelessly enter the amount of this money among her receipts. This of course will be a second and an erroneous entry, because the amount is in reality a part of the agent's check which has already been entered in the account-book. Moreover, the check which has been cashed will not represent an amount which has been received as a portion of an income, but merely the transfer of a portion of an income from the bank to the pocket. To avoid mistakes of this kind, which will evidently render an account-book useless, or worse than useless, it is only necessary, when making an entry either of receipts or expenditures, to consider whether or not the item has been included in a previous entry.

When a page of expenditures has been entirely filled (there being usually many more entries of expenditures than of receipts), a line should be drawn across the unused part of the page of receipts, from under the last figures downward