Statistics Show That Ten Per Cent of Them Owe for Food, Rent, Clothing,
and Funeral Expenses.
Charles F. Pidgin, chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of
Labor, has been inquiring into the question of debt. Statistics issued
by the Bureau show that at least ten per cent of the residents of Boston
are in debt for their food, rent, clothing, furniture, and for funeral
and other expenses. These people are thus partly supported by others.
Mr. Pidgin says:
Debt has gained such a hold upon the people of to-day that the only
sure way to decrease the number of people who owe money, not only for
extravagances but for sustenance, seems to be to begin with the
children, and devise some scheme by which thrift may be taught in the
public schools. The generation which is growing up should be taught to
have a horror of indebtedness, and how to earn money, how to save it,
and how to spend it wisely.
The effect of intemperance is taught in the public schools. Why should
there not be some sort of course of study that will show the effect of
indebtedness on a person’s life and character?
The children nowadays do not, as a rule, know the value of money. When
they want spending money they go to their parents and ask for it. When
it is gone they ask for more. Neither the parents nor the children in
most cases know how much money goes in this way, and the youngsters
are not called upon to exercise judgment in spending the money.
The little newsboys on the street work hard for their money. They know
the value of every cent, and that they must save for a rainy day.
If other children were taught to earn a little, instead of having it
always given to them, they would make better citizens and would know
how far a dollar should go.
If parents who give their children money when they ask for it would,
instead, give them a stated sum each week or month for spending money,
and make it an object for them to save it, it would go a long way
toward prejudicing them against debt.
I believe in allowances for children, and for wives, too, for that
matter. It makes them responsible for a certain sum, and nearly always
they will take a certain pride in making it go as far as possible.
Chief Watts, of the Boston police, does not think that debt is a cause
of crime. He says:
I never heard of any one stealing to pay their debts, and although
being in debt may have an influence on a certain class of
criminals—such as shoplifters and embezzlers—I do not think that it
has any influence on the general run of crime.
So far as suicide and murders are concerned, I can’t recall a case of
suicide where the person had been worrying about debt, neither can I
recall a murder that debt had anything to do with.
It’s girls, not debt, that cause murders and suicides—not that I blame
the women; I should not want to be understood that way—but
love-affairs are generally the cause of police records along those
lines. Men seldom get desperate from debt. I believe that the general
tendency of every one is to pay his debts if he has half a chance.
It was a Massachusetts sage—Emerson—who wrote:
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill?
Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill!