been presented, so that we may know just where we stand."

"What, on the other hand, will happen if I run through my credit before
the year is out?"

The superintendent smiled. "I have read," he said, "that the spendthrift
evil was quite a serious one in your day. Our system has the advantage
over yours that the most incorrigible spendthrift can not trench on his
principal, which consists in his indivisible equal share in the capital
of the nation. All he can at most do is to waste the annual dividend.
Should you do this, I have no doubt your friends will take care of you,
and if they do not you may be sure the nation will, for we have not the
strong stomachs that enabled our forefathers to enjoy plenty with hungry
people about them. The fact is, we are so squeamish that the knowledge
that a single individual in the nation was in want would keep us all
awake nights. If you insisted on being in need, you would have to hide
away for the purpose.

"Have you any idea," I asked, "how much this credit of $4,000 would have
been equal to in purchasing power in 1887?"

"Somewhere about $6,000 or $7,000, I should say," replied Mr. Chapin. "In
estimating the economic position of the citizen you must consider that a
great variety of services and commodities are now supplied gratuitously
on public account, which formerly individuals had to pay for, as, for
example, water, light, music, news, the theatre and opera, all sorts of
postal and electrical communications, transportation, and other things
too numerous to detail."

"Since you furnish so much on public or common account, why not furnish