he owns houses, he must fear fire and storm; if he owns ships, he must expect accidents and shipwreck; if he owns railroads, his chances of profit are precarious for a dozen reasons. I remember once hearing a mechanic who had become rich say something like this: "I used to throw down my tools at six o'clock and think no more of my work until morning. I envied rich men and thought that they had only to live at ease and free from care; but since I have had property I have had more sleepless nights than in all my life before."
I pass over the cares of riches which belong only to the care of objects of luxury like horses and villas and yachts, and also the cares which come from the burdens laid on wealth by other people who know what should be the duties of wealth and are eager to see that wealth performs them. There is another set of constraints and limitations which comes from the fact that the contract relations of wealth are necessarily far more numerous and complicated than those of poverty. The great limitation on the liberty of the civilized man is that which comes from his contracts. Society is bound together by these, and they increase in a high ratio by the side of the increase of wealth; they forbid a man to do as he would like to do, and force him to do what he has agreed to do; he is under bonds to do this from the very fact of his wealth, which makes him responsible. It is one of the injustices of modern society which are never mentioned in our current discussions, but one of the most mischievous from which we suffer, that a man who has no property may break contracts with impunity.
It is no light thing, also, that a man who has property should be responsible for all damages which may proceed forth from himself or his property against any of his fellow-citizens; which liability, although it is as
