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��ABOUT STEALING.
��ing the article is very scarce — he can get it for you. You send the money and the article comes with an express bill, which you pay, of course. On opening the package you learn to your disgust that the said "purely vegetable" ingredient grows wild in your garden or pasture. The occult part of this transaction is that your Boston or New York would-be ben- efactor has fixed a new name to pig weed or yellow dock. You next send your stamp to the fellow who wants you to get suddenly rich. He sends a reply by return of mail that he will send you a book by Expiess, telling you how to make the aforesaid fortune if you will re- mit him $2.00; and, strange to say, hun- dreds do send the $2.00, if you don't. But the best of the game is the stamp pays the advertiser handsomely, for he gets hundreds in a day. He makes money out of a three cent fraud.
During the late war the government was cheated out of millions by a system of fraud which, strange to say, almost every one considers "all right." It should not be called a system. It was an epi- demic that accompanies war as does the raven. It was designated by the slang name of " shoddy." Government was supplied with shoddy shoes, shoddy stockings, shoddy shirts, shoddy pants, shoddy coats, shoddy hats, and shoddy men under them, including generals, cor- porals and privates. Shoddy rations were not uncommon, and shoddy pay must have been' the rule certainly, when gold was at $2.80. This latter was ex- cusable, however. The government did the best it could. Strange as it may ap- pear, almost every one rather endorses stealing from government ; at least men don't take it to heart and mourn over it, though they may swear at times. Men don't realize that he who robs the gov- ernment robs himself. The people have to pay for all the robberies and the bad debts.
There are men and women who will steal simply for the sake of stealing. Persons who have enough of this world's goods, want for nothing, and who even would be healthier and happier if they were obliged to earn their daily bread — who cannot pass certain goods and wares
��without pocketing them, hiding them beneath a cloak or secreting them in some way. A few years since there was a lady in Boston — alive now for aught we know — who was in the almost weekly habit of visiting certain stores and shop- lifting. The dealers were requested by her husband not to arrest her, but bring in the bill and he would settle the same, being amply able. A deacon of a church
in the town of L , Maine, was in the
habit, all of his life, of going about in the night time and stealing chains, hoes, shovels, axes, carpenter's tools, etc. A phrenologist happened in town and of- fered to examine a head while blindfold- ed. This deacon was selected as a sub- ject by a committee who believed him thoroughly honest. When the phrenolo- gist's hands were placed on the deacon's head, the former suddenly removed them and asked not to examine that head. The deacon came off the stage ; but in the course of the evening was sent up again. Again the Professor asked to be excused. The audience insisted, and he then told them the deacon was a thief. The audi- ence hissed, and the course of lectures was broken up. A few years after cir- cumstances led to the arrest of the dea- con. His buildings, on search, were found full of stolen goods, such as nam- ed. The sad sequel to this story is, the deacon committed suicide before the day of trial came.
Franklin said: "If rogues knew the advantage attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become honest men from mere roguery." This in a measure accounts for the growth of honesty in all branches of trade. It is for the interest of the dealer to be honest with custom- ers, and they will again come to buy. Hence the grocer and the butcher are led from pecuniary considerations, if from none other, to give weight and measure. So with all dealers, even to watch deal- ers, inasmuch as time is money. The better time they give the more money they are sure to get in return for time sold. We believe it was a miser who, reading the motto "Time is money," said he would surely be rich in eternity.
But there is another class of thieves who are very numerous. These are lit
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