In the investigation of this interesting subject, I have had a good deal of conversation with young ladies, who have given me the fullest information, and in a manner so charming, that, if it were common in witnesses generally, it would make Blue-Books very pretty reading.

‘I consider it to be “a pinch,"’ says one, ’when I am obliged to put on black mittens on occasions when I know other girls will have long white kid gloves.’  I must confess I have a prejudice myself against mittens; they are, so to speak, ‘gritty’ to touch; so that the pinch, if it be one, experienced by the wearer, is shared by her ungloved friends.  The same thing may be said of that drawing-room fire which is lit so late in the season for economical reasons, and so late in the day at all times:  the pinch is felt as much by the visitors as by the members of the household.  These things, however, are mere nips, and may be placed in the same category with the hardships complained of by my friend Quiverfull’s second boy.  ’I don’t mind having papa’s clothes cut up for me,’ he says, ‘but what I do think hard is getting Bob’s clothes’ (Bob being his elder brother), ’which have been papa’s first; however, I am in great hopes that I am out-growing Bob.’

A much more severe example of the pinch of poverty than these is to be found in railway travelling; no lady of any sense or spirit objects to travel by the second, or even the third class, if her means do not justify her going by the first.  But when she meets with richer friends upon the platform, and parts with them to journey in the same compartment with their man-servant, she suffers as acutely as though, when the guard slams the door of the carriage with the vehemence proportioned to its humble rank, her tender hand had been crushed in it.  Of course it is very foolish of her; but it demands democratic opinions, such as almost no woman of birth and breeding possesses, not to feel that pinch.  Her knowledge that it is also hard upon the man-servant, who has never sat in her presence before, but only stooped over her shoulder with ‘’Ock, miss,’ serves but to increase her pain.

A great philosopher has stated that the worst evil of poverty is, that it makes folks ridiculous; by which, I hope, he only means that, as in the above case, it places them in incongruous positions.  The man, or woman, who derives amusement from the lack of means of a fellow-creature, would jeer at a natural deformity, be cruel to children, and insult old age.  Such people should be whipped and then hanged.  Nevertheless there are certain little pinches of poverty so slight, that they tickle almost as much as they hurt the victim.  A lady once told me (interrupting herself, however, with pleasant bursts of merriment) that as a young girl her allowance was so small that when she went out to spend the evening at a friend’s, her promised pleasure was darkened by the presentiment (always fulfilled) that the cabman was sure to charge her more than the proper fare.  The extra expense was really of consequence to her, but she never dared dispute it, because of the presence of the footman who opened the door.