Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1875 — Uncertainty of Wealth. [ARTICLE]

Uncertainty of Wealth.

The absence of the law of primogeniture causes a frequent change of ownership in the private residences which contribute so much to the adornment of our cities. While the head of the family lives the home may be retained—though very often a reverse of fortune compels him to seek humbler quarters—but when he dies tlie heirs are obliged to get rid of tlie too expensive luxury. How many of the houses built in St. Louis twentyyears aso are now owned by the men who erected them, or their de'scendants? How manv of later date, now occupied by their builders, will be in tlie possession of their present tenants, or their descendants, twenty years hence* Other influences beside the lack of primogeniture contribute to this, m some respects, unfortunate result. Therg. axe. more ups and downs” in life in the'new world than in the old. Fortunes are made much quicker and disappear much more rapidly. Wealth is seldom transmitted beyond the second generation, and in many instances does "not

■dast~ttaougtr-the--TTStr~Tlir~bQy~sofn “with a silver spoon in his mouth - ’ frequently has to taste pewter before his pilgrimage is over, and he may have the pleasure of being splashed with mud from the carriage-wheels of the man who was once his father’s porter. This is a free country, very free, indeed, and among the consequences of that freedom is the exceeding uncertainty of financial matters. Yet in no country is less provision made for the evil day so far aq our children are concerned. The wealthy parent brings up his sons and daughters as though there was not the remotest possibility they could ever be poor. If a rich' father should insist upon his boy learning a trade he Would be set down as a mildlunatic. If a rich mo’her ■should Instil into her daughter rigid ideas ot economy and industry she would be looked upon as either very mean or very foolish—probably both. Yet, every day we are taught the necessity of this preliminary discipline; every day we see men and women falling from affluence to 'poverty who, if properly trained, might not

have fallen at all, pr, ifthey did fall, could have risen again. It is ,a shame and disgrace that in a land where labor is supposed to be honorable, and where the law recognizes no distinction of caste, so small a proportion of the sons of the wealthier classes learn trades. No young man has a right to consider himself thoroughly independent unless he has some avocation by which, health permitting, he can always make a living. And the best and surest avocations ire those for which there is always a demand. Lawyers, doctors, preachers, professors, clerks—alllhese and their kindred are frequently a dragin the market; but how seldom is it that a good carpenter, blacksmith, machinist, wagonmaker, shoemaker, tinsmith, book-binder or printer has to travel far in search of remunerative employment. We shall riever be thoroughly republican until there are fewer genteel drones in the national hive. — St. Louie liepublican.