Chapter 25: A Leaking Tap Is A Great Waster

Chapter 25.
A Leaking Tap is a Great Waster

A leaking tap is a great waster. Drop by drop, by day and by night, the liquor runs away, and the housewife wonders how so much can have gone. This is the fashion in which many laboring men are kept poor: they don't take care of the pence, and so they have no pounds to put in the bank. You cannot fill the rain-water butt if you do not catch the drops. A little here and a little there, and his purse is empty before a man dares to look in it. What with waste in the kitchen, waste at table, and waste at the saloon, fools and their money part to meet no more.

If the wife wastes too, there are two holes in the barrel. Sometimes the woman dresses in tawdry finery and gets in debt to the tally-man; and it is still worse if she takes to the bottle. When the goose drinks as deep as the gander, pots are soon empty, and the cupboard is bare. Then they talk about saving, like the man who locked the stable door after his horse was stolen. They will not save at the brim, but promise themselves and the pigs that they will do wonders when they get near the bottom. It is well to follow the good old rule:

"Spend so as ye may Spend for many a day."

He who eats all the loaf at breakfast may whistle for his dinner and get a dish of empties. If we do not save while we have it, we certainly shall not save after all is gone. There is no grace in waste. Economy is a duty; extravagance is a sin. The old Book saith, "He that hasteth to be rich shall not be innocent," and depend upon it, he that hasteth to be poor is in much the same box. Stretch your legs according to the length of your blanket, and never spend all that you have:

"Put a little by;

Things may go awry."

It will help to keep you from anxious care—(which is sinful),—if you take honest care—(which is commendable). Lay up when young, and you shall find when old; but do not this greedily or selfishly, or God may send a curse on your store. Money is not a comfort by itself, for they said in the olden time:

"They who have money are troubled about it, And they who have none are troubled without it."

But though the dollar is not almighty, it ought to be used for the Almighty, and not wasted in wicked extravagance. Even a dog will hide up a bone which he does not want, and it is said of wolves that they gnaw not the bones till the morrow; but many of our working-men are without thrift or forethought, and, like children, they will eat all the cake at once if they can. When a frost comes they are poor frozen-out gardeners, and ask for charity, when they ought to have laid up for a snowy day. I wonder they are not ashamed of themselves. Those are three capital lines:

"Earn all you can, Save all you can, Give all you can."

But our neighbor Scroggs acts on quite a different rule-of-three, and tries three other cans:

"Eat all you can, Drink all you can, Spend all you can."

He can do more of all these than is canny. It would be a good thing if he and the beer-can were a good deal further apart.

I don't want any person to become a screw, or a hoarder, or a lover of money, but I do wish our working-men would make better use of what they get. It is little enough, I know; but some make it less by squandering it. Solomon commends the good woman who "considereth a field and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard." He also tells the sluggard to go to the ant, and see how she stores for the winter. I am told that ants of this sort do not live in England, and I am afraid they don't; but my master says he has seen them in France, and I think it would be a good idea to bring over the breed. My old friend Tusser says:

"Ill husbandry drinketh Himself out of door;

Good husbandry thinketh Of friend and of poor."

The more of such good husbandry the merrier for old England. You cannot burn your fagots in autumn and then stack them for the winter. If you want the calf to become a cow, you must not be in a hurry to eat neats' feet. Money once spent is like shot fired from a gun; you can never call it back. No matter how sorry you may be, the goldfinches are out of the cage, and they will not fly back for all your crying. If a fellow gets into debt it is worse still, for that is a ditch in which many find mud, but none catch fish. When all his sugar is gone, a man's friends are not often very sweet upon him. People who have nothing are very apt to be thought worth nothing: mind, I don't say so, but a good many do. Wrinkled purses make wrinkled faces. It has been said that they laugh most who have least to lose, and it may be so; but I am afraid that some of them laugh on the wrong side of their faces. Foolish spending buys a penny-worth of merrymaking, but it costs many a pound of sorrow. The profligate sells his cow to buy a canary, and boils down a bullock to get half a pint of bad soup, and that he throws away as soon as he has tasted it.

I should not care to spend all my living to buy a mouldy repentance, yet this is what many a prodigal has done, and many more will do.

Money is not the chief thing. It is as far below the grace of God and faith in Christ as a ploughed field is below the stars; but still, godliness hath the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come, and he who is wise enough to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, should also be wise enough to use aright the other things which God is pleased to add unto him.

Somewhere or other I met with a set of mottoes about gold, which I copied out, and here they are. I don't know who first pricked them down, but like a great many of the things which are stuck together in my books, I found them here and there, and they are none of mine: at least, I cannot claim the freehold, but have them on copyhold, which is a fair tenure. If the owners of these odds and ends will call for them at the house where this book is published they may have them on paying for the paper they are done up in:

Mottoes About Gold A vain man's motto is: "Win gold and wear it." A generous man's motto is: "Win gold and share it." A miserly man's motto is: "Win gold and spare it." A profligate man's motto is: "Win gold and spend it." A banker's motto is: "Win gold and lend it." A gambler's motto is: "Win gold and lose it." A wise man's motto is: "Wind gold and use it."