Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1877 — A High Sense of Honor. [ARTICLE]

A High Sense of Honor.

The Duke of Wellington had a sense of honor in all money dealings, and would suffer none of his agents to do a mean thing in his name. His steward once bought some land adjoining his country estate, and was boasting of having made a very fine bargain, from the seller being in straitened circumstances. “ What aid you pay for it?” asked the Duke. “Eight hundred pounds,” was the answer. “ And how much was it worth?” “Eleven hundred pounds,” said toe steward, rubbing his hands in glee at the thought of the good bargain. “Then take three hundred pounds and cany them to toe seller, with my compliments, and don’t ever venture to talk to me of cheap land again.” The steward was confounded, and could scarcely credit his own ears. The idea that anyone could refuse to profit by a sharp bargain, and throw money away in paying more than was agreed on, was hard for him to comprehend. It is stated that diamonds have declined in market value. The decline is attributed to the large numbers recently found in Brazil and in toe South African diamond fields. A Paris jeweler says that the trade in diamonds is, after all, very limited, owing to the very few who wear them, and that they keep passing in rotation from hand to hand. Of fifty persons who buy diamonds, forty purchase to sell again, six buy to give away, and four only actually keep and wear the gems. —Old Ben Franklin had a level head for a philosopher. A Massachusetts town was named for him, and then the people wanted him to give them a bell for their new meeting-house. He replied that they ought to think more of sense than of sound, and gave them 116 books to serve as toe nucleus of a town libraiy. And most of them are in the libraiy still.