No. 144.] 247 



market, by either railroad or water, where two years ago last 

 spring if potatoes could be sold at any price they brought ten 

 cents a bushel, and the purchaser would remark, as an excuse fc* 

 paying that, that they surely ought to be worth something. Po- 

 tatoes are not always wealth. 



Many men in this city are making drudges of themselves down 

 town twelve and sixteen hours a day for the privilege of putting 

 their names on the door of an up-town parlor and sleeping there. 

 If such a man's property is all invested in his house, and he con- 

 trives to occupy the whole of it, he may he poor, yes, sir, very 

 poor, indeed; houses are not always wealth. 



There is an anecdote attributed to a very eminent member of 

 Congress to this effect : A gentleman traveling in the southwest 

 took occasion to stay over night with a friend, and in the morning 

 walked out with him to look 'at his possessions. When he saw 

 his friends expose of barren acres he allowed his countenance to 

 express the conimisseration that he felt. Seeing this the south- 

 erner cheeringly remarked that he was not so poor as appearances 

 seemed to indicate, for one of his neighbors owned part of that 

 Lands are not always wealth. 



Those streets, those very pavements that we tread, have been 

 trod by a child of sin and sorrow — one whose genius could give 

 rise to those wonderful combinations of words and sounds which 

 once heard, haunt us in after years ; and yet the author of 

 ^' Bells" and "Ammabel Lee" was "doomed in scanty poverty 

 to roam." The ability then to minister to the caprices of the 

 rich or to the comfort of the masses is not always wealth. 



The connection between wealth and prosperity (individual <h" 

 national) is so generally conceded, that we have assumed it here. 

 We are finding that though wealth is dependent on surplus pro- 

 duce, yet if that surplus remains undisposed of, unsold from any 

 circumstance of inability or negligence, it is worthless. We ven- 

 ture to assume, then, that wealth and its consequent pros])erity 

 consists in having a surplus to sell, and in buying with that sui^ 

 plus what we wish of foreign products. 



