at home, he received an answer in the affirmative; and consequently went into a large drawing-room, where Miss Hope was sitting alone; and, so far, all was as he wished. After the casual every-day remarks he, seeing that Mrs. Moxon had not come in, as, indeed, she was engaged in teaching a class of little natives, thought he might begin to speak, and said "Do you not find, after England-ah, ah-that this sort of ife here is ah, ah-rather dull ?" "No, Mr. Nugee; I find I can give myself plenty of occupa tion.” "I think," said he, "that occupations of most kinds—ah, ah! -are boreing." She felt inclined to laugh, but thought that if she did so it might give him encouragement; so she waited to see what he would next say. One circumstance, in addition to his inordinate vanity, was calculated to give him confidence with most girls-and he himself thought, with every girl-he was very rich. His father had made a good fortune as a doctor in the country, and was not disposed to leave it. He had no son to inherit his wealth but this young man, whose mother had been dead some time; and he almost idolised him. And rather than having him settled in a profession which would oblige him to reside in Europe, he had used his interest to get him a cadetship, so as to have him near him. "I find I can only manage to get through the day by billiards, music-ab, ah-and I live on pine-apple puffs and iced champagne—ah, ah," said the cadet. Miss Hope did really laugh then, and this gave him confidence; and he said "I vow, Miss Hope, I never did see any one here or elsewhere that I could-ah, al-admire so much as I do you." "Yes, indeed! Oh, say that you can give me leave to deserve your favour,—do, dear Miss Hope," and he actually went down on his knees to her. 66 "No, sir," she said. Pray rise; I can scarcely believe you are in earnest; but even if you were I could not think of listening to you." "May I hope," he said, "that in time I may have the good fortune of being looked upon more favourably?" "I think," said Miss Hope, "that I must say certainly not; and I hope that I may hear no more on the subject." She did not think it at all necessary to clothe her words in milder terms; and so he bowed to her and left the room, much discomfited. C C No; still our paths seem cleft in twain, Why should I suffer this sweet pain? Why, bud and sunbeam, fool me so ? O, I know It is the fatal First of April! MAURICE DAVIES. LUXURY AND POVERTY. By DR. ALFRED J. H. CRESPI. In a letter I received some time ago from Mr. Townshend Mayer occurs the following passage: "Luxury and poverty are two bad things; but I question if anything new can be said on them." Probably many of the persons who take up this article will wonder what any one can find to say which has not been said on the subject hundreds of times before. For countless generations moralists and philanthropists have heaped invectives on the extremes of wealth and poverty. But, in spite of the manifest advantages of a modest competence, these extremes continue, and tend to increase. One of the good men of old prayed that he might have "neither riches nor poverty," and his beautiful prayer has been repeated by millions, who have either been weighed down under the grievous burden. of wealth they knew not how wisely to use, or have vainly struggled all the days of their life to keep at a distance the bitter pangs of poverty. What, indeed, that is new can any one find to say on a subject. which has been worn threadbare? What hope is there that either the old or the new is likely to bear precious fruit, and to keep some weaker brother from forming those habits, or following that course of life, which makes one extreme--that terrible extreme povertyalmost inevitable? Can I expect to do any real and lasting good by any of the thoughts on this great subject which I may commit to paper? Can I hope that what I may say will have weight, when many better and wiser men than I have gone over the same ground, have tried their best, and have had to confess that they have utterly failed? Candidly, I must answer that I expect and hope nothing from anything I may write on wealth and poverty. Every man who, like myself, is fond of thinking over the great and intricate social problems of the age in which he chances to live, and who, from choice and necessity, sees much of those extremes of luxury and poverty which are a reproach to the civilisation and piety of the day, must desire to commit his views to paper on some of these momentous questions. He may hope that something he may say will have a good effect on someone, and help to keep away from peril the steps of some hastening fast into those fearful paths which end in life-long, hopeless, corroding poverty. But whether his Jeremiads are thrown away or not, his mind his relieved. He has done his duty. He has striven his best. After all, bad as luxury is, it is an evil not so great as poverty. The very rich are daily increasing in numbers, and their temptations become hourly greater. Perhaps the wealthy and luxurious form an army as vast as the very poor,—at least, in England, where, though the poverty-stricken are counted in hundreds of thousands, the rich abound. The wealthy have their peculiar temptations and trials, I confess, and, morally, they may suffer as severely as the poor; but on the whole there is not so much to make their life dangerous as those have to encounter who suffer from the other extreme. No doubt a man with ten thousand a year may be injured by great indulgence, and may come to consider himself of vast importance in the economy of the world. He may become arrogant and selfish, and lose, little by little, his love and sympathy for the many persons who cringe to him, and fawn upon him, and treat him with servile deference, and applaud all he says and does, only because he fares sumptuously every day, and is clothed in purple and fine linen. Such a man may allow his thoughts to centre on himself, and may hardly find it possible to preserve his respect for his poorer neighbours. He may forget that he and the ignoble poor, who lie down at his feet, and are happy if he only deigns to notice them, are made of the same flesh, and in the eyes of the great and good God are brethren. All this may well be; yet I think that the dangers of wealth are less than once they were. Times are very much altered since it was said that it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. The change in the conditions of society has fortunately taken from the rich and great that absolute control over the lives and morals of their dependents which no human being ever ought to have had, and which could never be wisely and mercifully used, for the very attempt to enforce it be came an abuse ruinous to master and servant. In a certain sense, the rich and the poor are equal in the eyes of the law; and, thank God, the irresponsible, the tyrannical power of the former has in this country for ever passed away. Still, the rich man stands on an eminence far removed from the cares and storms of life, and is an object of much envious admiration. But then, on the other hand, how much greater are the temptations and difficulties of the poor man, applying that ambiguous word poor not to a great class with a certain moderate income, but, as ought alone to be the case, to persons, whatever their social station, who are forced into expenses far in excess of their income. I have drawn attention to the rich man's trials, but are they comparable to those of another man, belonging to the very same sphere of life, a member of the very same profession, educated in the same manner, having similar tastes, whose income instead of £10,000 is only £120? There are plenty of such cases everywhere. Is not the poor man ground into the very dust by poverty? Are not his thoughts still more concentrated on self? Is he not deprived of all happiness and joy in life? and instead of living in and enjoying the present, is he not always looking ahead, and longing, with a dull, aching longing for better days? Does he not waste his energies contriving, scheming how to meet the bill that must be paid next week? Are not his thoughts taken from higher and nobler pursuits, and given to trying to get some little indulgence, some important necessary, which may require months of retrenchment to pay for? Is not the poor man miserable, hopeless, apathetic, intensely selfish? Luxury is an evil; but it seldom injures to the same extent as poverty. Wealth, it should never be forgotten, may be wisely used if the possessor has judgment and good-feeling. But poverty will and must sting and gall every hour of life the unhappy man who is subjected to it. Neither poverty nor riches should be the good man's daily prayer; neither superfluity to make him forget God and despise his fellow-men, nor penury to make him sick of life and envious of all who are better off than himself. About luxury I have little to say. A man may be taught how to avoid penury; but no one will listen to warnings not to strive for wealth. The rich man has infinite opportunities for doing good; his riches are not necessarily a peril to him. peril to him. When he has learnt that difficult lesson, that wealth has its duties, which he is even more bound not to forget than that it has its rights, he may be trusted to do his best to relieve the necessities of his fellows. When he has learnt that every time he spends money he purchases the fruits of industry, and sets labour in motion, he has found out something that he dare not forget. The rich man may discover, either from education or from his own better nature, that he is failing in his duty to God and man if he compels the labourer-for, in these days, the rich man literally compels the poor man to labour, and assigns him his daily task-to devote his time and energy to work of no real use to the purchaser or to the community. Let the man, be he rich cr poor, who goes into the market with a single coin, or with half a million of gold ones, remember that just as he lays out that money, wisely or foolishly, so will the kind of work done be wise or foolish; so will the time of the labourers, whether high or low, skilled ar unskilled, be turned to a noble and profitable use, or recklessly squandered. Let the rich man not forget that woe to him if he compels his brethren to contrive and toil to gratify his sensual appetites, to pander to his foolish whims. Let him remember that it is his bounden duty not to encourage |