THE NEW MORALITY.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATO:t.
your ingenious article on itowLANDSTEmaNsoN, you say that of all roithers there is none to be so much feared and so difficult to be guarded against as the swindling hanker. Su^It may certainly have been the case, but the moral which al judicious persons have drawn from late experience, has served as a piding principle to deliver us front the danger you contemplate. The mural derived from STErnENsoN's roguery was this—that it was the height of folly and imprudence for any ono to save money: that so many knaves were in the world, so many wolves in sheep's clothing, that " the baggage of virtue," as Bacon calls riches, was always in peril of being cut off, and the only security is in present enjoyment. Impressed with these sentiments, Sir, no prudent man would ever think of keeping money at his bankers, or anywhere else, for somehow or other the rogues will surely finger it. If your banker be honest, your friend in highest credit will borrow, and infallibly decamp with it. By some means it will be certain to go. No—the plan now is, to spend and regale, and live a little before the world. Nay, a wise man fortifies and hedges himself in with a few goodly debts, which cause him to be carefully regarded, and looked anxiously upon by his creditors; and if even a convulsion of the state should happen., he has the solid satisfaction of knowing that he has lost nothing, but, on the contrary, gained the past and irrevocable enjoyment by his forecast. According to the vulgar phrase, we now " eat the calf in the cow's belly," and so do we put our veal beyond the reach of the malice of fate or the dexterity of knaves. Saving is the idlest of all follies—anticipating is the true wisdom of the present day. No one can cheat or defraud you if you anticipate. In the race of life, the Devil takes the hindmost, and the course of prudence is to outrun both the constable and the thief. We live in that city where, as PETRONI US says, " aut lacerantur aut lacerant," and it is pleasanter to be in the active than the passive mood of the verbs of injury. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
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