“The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend.  To these two original diversities may be reduced all those impertinent classifications of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men, red men, and such-like.”—­Charles Lamb.

People do not know what troubles they are brewing for themselves when they run into debt.  It does not matter for what the debt is incurred.  It hangs like a millstone round a man’s neck until he is relieved of it.  It presses like a nightmare upon him.  It hinders the well-being of his family.  It destroys the happiness of his household.

Even those who are in the regular receipt of large incomes, feel crippled, often for years, by the incubus of debt.  Weighed down by this, what can a man do to save—­to economise with a view to the future of his wife and children?  A man in debt is disabled from insuring his life, from insuring his house and goods, from putting money in the bank, from buying a house or a freehold.  All his surplus gains must go towards the payment of his debt.

Even men of enormous property, great lords with vast landed estates, often feel themselves oppressed and made miserable by loads of debt.  They or their forefathers having contracted extravagant habits—­a taste for gambling, horseracing, or expensive living,—­borrow money on their estates, and the burden of debt remains.  Not, perhaps, in the case of strictly entailed estates—­for the aristocracy have contrived so that their debts shall be wiped out at their death, and they can thus gratify their spendthrift tastes at the expense of the public—­the estates going comparatively unburdened to the entailed heir.  But comparatively few are in the position of the privileged classes.  In the case of the majority, the debts are inherited with the estates, and often the debts are more than the estates are worth.  Thus it happens that a large part of the lands of England are at this moment the property of mortgagees and money-lenders.

The greatest men have been in debt.  It has even been alleged that greatness and debt have a certain relation to each other.  Great men have great debts; they are trusted.  So have great nations; they are respectable, and have credit.  Spiritless men have no debts, neither have spiritless nations; nobody will trust them.  Men as well as nations in debt secure a widely extended interest.  Their names are written in many books; and many are the conjectures formed as to whether they will pay—­or not.  The man who has no debts slips through the world comparatively unnoticed; while he who is in everybody’s books has all eyes fixed upon him.  His health is enquired after with interest; and if he goes into foreign countries, his return is anxiously looked for.