The number of well-paid workmen in this country has become very large, who might easily save and economize, to the improvement of their moral well-being, of their respectability and independence, and of their status in society as men and citizens.  They are improvident and thriftless to an extent which proves not less hurtful to their personal happiness and domestic comfort, than it is injurious to the society of which they form so important a part.

In “prosperous times” they spend their gains recklessly, and when adverse times come, they are at once plunged in misery.  Money is not used, but abused; and when wage-earning people should be providing against old age, or for the wants of a growing family, they are, in too many cases, feeding folly, dissipation, and vice.  Let no one say that this is an exaggerated picture.  It is enough to look round in any neighbourhood, and see how much is spent and how little is saved; what a large proportion of earnings goes to the beershop, and how little to the savings bank or the benefit society.

“Prosperous times” are very often the least prosperous of all times.  In prosperous times, mills are working full time; men, women, and children are paid high wages; warehouses are emptied and filled; goods are manufactured and exported; wherries full of produce pass along the streets; immense luggage trains run along the railways, and heavily-laden ships leave our shores daily for foreign ports, full of the products of our industry.  Everybody seems to be becoming richer and more prosperous.  But we do not think of whether men and women are becoming wiser, better trained, less self-indulgent, more religiously disposed, or living for any higher purpose than the satisfaction of the animal appetite.

If this apparent prosperity be closely examined, it will be found that expenditure is increasing in all directions.  There are demands for higher wages; and the higher wages, when obtained, are spent as soon as earned.  Intemperate habits are formed, and, once formed, the habit of intemperance continues.  Increased wages, instead of being saved, are for the most part spent in drink.

Thus, when a population is thoughtless and improvident, no kind of material prosperity will benefit them.  Unless they exercise forethought and economy, they will alternately be in a state of “hunger and burst.”  When trade falls off, as it usually does after exceptional prosperity, they will not be comforted by the thought of what they might have saved, had it ever occurred to them that the “prosperous times” might not have proved permanent.

During prosperous times, Saint Monday is regularly observed.  The Bank Holiday is repeated weekly.  “Where are all the workmen?” said a master to his foreman on going the rounds among his builders,—­this work must be pushed on and covered in while the fine weather lasts.”  “Why, sir,” said the foreman, “this is Monday; and they have not spent all their money yet.”  Dean Boyd,