One fine August bank-holiday many thoughts, more or less connected with
the day, prompted me to write this essay, so forcibly did it appear
that people required help to make their lives easier and happier.
Since then there have been several bank-holidays; and though trade is
depressed throughout the country, though financial panic has ruined
thousands, yet the demand for beer, spirits, and tobacco is as great as
ever; the hollow gaieties of life are as noisy as ever--perhaps the
more so for being more hollow; still our most precious friends kill
themselves with overwork--mental pulverization. If they eased their
minds by employing their hands they might yet live, even though many
could not, last autumn, afford to buy the breath of sea or mountain air
which would have strengthened them for the burdens of the new year.
Those who were wise and who had capital invested it in health, that
being likely to bring them in the best return.
We have had seven years of the highest national prosperity. Although
fictitious, it gave us pleasure while it lasted, and we were able to
enjoy all that life has to offer in its perfection. We may be going to
pass through seven years of dearth, so we must husband our resources of
health and wealth, instead of drawing upon them in the reckless way we
have lately accustomed ourselves to do. Some years of scarcity may be a
blessing to us all, if they lead us back from the habits of excess and
idleness we have fallen into, and particularly the craving for
excitement, whether in the form of literature, or by means of
stimulants and cordials (absinthe).
A plain but short statement of our national losses will show the
necessity of economizing the goods we still possess, financial as well
as physical.
Independent of the stagnation of trade which paralyzes every branch of
our commerce, we have lately had losses through foreign loans more
severe than any we have experienced during the present century.
Since the announcement by Turkey in October, 1875, that the interest on
the Turkish debt would be reduced, there has been a great fall in
foreign stocks. The debt of Turkey--roughly speaking, L200,000,000--has
fallen, say, L125,000,000 in value. Egyptian securities, not including
the floating debt, approximately estimated at L60,000,000, have fallen
some L20,000,000 in value. In smaller stocks the fall has probably been
some L20,000,000; and since the breaking out of the Eastern Question,
Russian stocks, at an aggregate of about L165,000,000, have fallen 12
per cent., or a sum equal to more than L20,000,000 sterling.
Besides these calamities there have been in England, as shown by a
recent return, 1,797 commercial failures, representing liabilities of
L30,000,000 sterling, and it has been calculated that of the firms and
persons occupied in business, 3 per cent. have been unable to meet
their engagements.
These losses will account for less familiar faces being seen in the
Park in the season, for the numerous houses unlet in fashionable
quarters, for grouse-moors going almost begging; and, among many other
significant facts, Tattersall, who generally has 150 applications for
coachmen on his books, has now 150 coachmen applying to him for
situations.
In our present abundance of money, through dearth of safe investments,
many persons have purchased art treasures; which would be wise, but for
the pain it always causes to part with things that have once adorned
our homes, which makes this not a happy speculation.
It would be the part of a screech-owl to cry Woe! woe! and hoot
triumphantly over the distresses of our country; but there seems so
much of hope and promise in the fact of our meeting reverses of fortune
with courage, that we cannot feel that a real disaster has overtaken
us. We have in the case of France an example of how a great nation can
rise renewed in strength out of overwhelming troubles, and our trial is
less severe than that of France.
It is not good for any people to sit down to eat and drink and rise up
to play, any more than it is good for children to feed upon delicacies
in lieu of simple fare. Persons suddenly reduced from affluence to
comparative poverty may be glad of a few hints to show them how
happiness and refinement are by no means incompatible with a smaller
condition of fortune, with a shorter purse; for, after all, the purse
is not the pleasure, it only helps us to procure it; our own taste and
feeling must teach us what true pleasure is.
It may be demurred that some of the household improvements suggested in
this book would be expensive to carry out--such, for instance, as the
arrangement of the kitchen; and this is true: but looked at as an
investment, they would yield large interest, and it might be prudent to
invest under one's own eye, in one's own house, some of the capital we
cannot afford to sink. If used in economizing wages, it will give us a
profitable return.
We do not hesitate to lay out money in improvements on our farms. Why,
then, need we fear to arrange our dwellings in accordance with
principles of true economy, so that the ladies of our families may be
able to co-operate with us in advancing the benefit of all? Every
family might be its own Economical Housekeeping Company (Limited),
comprising in itself its shareholders and board of directors, realizing
cent. per cent. for its money, because L200 a year would go as far as
L400.
If we save the money we now spend upon keeping servants to do our work
for us, we shall have more to spend on our holidays, and so shall feel
all the more refreshed by our respite from work.
Much is said in this book about superfluities, but although some
passages may seem to give colour to such an idea, it is by no means
wished to convey the recommendation that our homes and lives are to be
bare of beauty. On the contrary, I hanker after profusion and love
plenty, but wish them to be placed where they will not give more labour
than pleasure, where they will not hamper our every movement at every
moment, making us ever wear a sort of moral tight kid-gloves, be the
weather hot or cold.
The rock which theories split upon is that they generally presuppose
that we can make our lives, and are in independent position and good
circumstances, whereas this is seldom the case. The majority of us are
neither in good circumstances nor independent: often we have had no
control over the purchase of our very furniture; so we must make the
best of what we have, only, when we have the opportunity of making a
change, let it be a reform as well as a change. My main object in
writing this essay has been to show how frequently, and in how short a
time, the saving effected by a reform covers the cost of carrying it
out.
In the case of young couples about to marry, and beginning to plan
their lives, any work will be good which aids them to lay down their
plans according to rules of economy and common sense.
_January, 1877._