The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.)

Husb.– I tell you, you cannot.

Wife. – Sure it is some terrible thing then. Why must not I know it? What! are you going to break? Come, tell me the worst of it.

Husb.– Break! no, no, I hope not – Break! no, I'll never break.

Wife. – As good as you have broke; don't presume; no man in trade can say he won't break.

Husb.– Yes, yes; I can say I won't break.

Wife. – I am glad to hear it; I hope you have a knack, then, beyond other tradesmen.

Husb.– No, I have not neither; any man may say so as well as I; and no man need break, if he will act the part of an honest man.

Wife. – How is that, pray?

Husb.– Why, give up all faithfully to his creditors, as soon as he finds there is a deficiency in his stock, and yet that there is enough left to pay them.

Wife. – Well, I don't understand those things, but I desire you would tell me what it is troubles you now; and if it be any thing of that kind, yet I think you should let me know it.

Husb.– Why should I trouble you with it?

Wife. – It would be very unkind to let me know nothing till it comes and swallows you up and me too, all on a sudden; I must know it, then; pray tell it me now.

Husb.– Why, then, I will tell you; indeed, I am not going to break, and I hope I am in no danger of it, at least not yet.

Wife. – I thank you, my dear, for that; but still, though it is some satisfaction to me to be assured of so much, yet I find there is something in it; and your way of speaking is ambiguous and doubtful. I entreat you, be plain and free with me. What is at the bottom of it? – why won't you tell me? – what have I done, that I am not to be trusted with a thing that so nearly concerns me?

Husb.– I have told you, my dear; pray be easy; I am not going to break, I tell you.

Wife. – Well, but let us talk a little more seriously of it; you are not going to break, that is, not just now, not yet, you said; but, my dear, if it is then not just at hand, but may happen, or is in view at some distance, may not some steps be taken to prevent it for the present, and to save us from it at last too.

Husb.– What steps could you think of, if that were the case?

Wife. – Indeed it is not much that is in a wife's power, but I am ready to do what lies in me, and what becomes me; and first, pray let us live lower. Do you think I would live as I do, if I thought your income would not bear it? No, indeed.

Husb.– You have touched me in the most sensible part, my dear; you have found out what has been my grief; you need make no further inquiries.

Wife. – Was that your grief? – and would you never be so kind to your wife as to let her know it?

Husb.– How could I mention so unkind a thing to you?

Wife. – Would it not have been more unkind to have let things run on to destruction, and left your wife to the reproach of the world, as having ruined you by her expensive living?

Husb.– That's true, my dear; and it may be I might have spoke to you at last, but I could not do it now; it looks so cruel and so hard to lower your figure, and make you look little in the eyes of the world, for you know they judge all by outsides, that I could not bear it.

Wife. – It would be a great deal more cruel to let me run on, and be really an instrument to ruin, my husband, when, God knows, I thought I was within the compass of your gettings, and that a great way; and you know you always prompted me to go fine, to treat handsomely, to keep more servants, and every thing of that kind. Could I doubt but that you could afford it very well?

Husb.– That's true, but I see it is otherwise now; and though I cannot help it, I could not mention it to you, nor, for ought I know, should I ever have done it.

Wife. – Why! you said just now you should have done it.

Husb.– Ay, at last, perhaps, I might, when things had been past recovery.

Wife. – That is to say, when you were ruined and undone, and could not show your head, I should know it; or when a statute of bankrupt had come out, and the creditors had come and turned us out of doors, then I should have known it – that would have been a barbarous sort of kindness.

Husb.– What could I do? I could not help it.

Wife. – Just so our old acquaintance G – W – did; his poor wife knew not one word of it, nor so much as suspected it, but thought him in as flourishing circumstances as ever; till on a sudden he was arrested in an action for a great sum, so great that he could not find bail, and the next day an execution on another action was served in the house, and swept away the very bed from under her; and the poor lady, that brought him £3000 portion, was turned into the street with five small children to take care of.

Husb.– Her case was very sad, indeed.

Wife. – But was not he a barbarous wretch to her, to let her know nothing of her circumstances? She was at the ball but the day before, in her velvet suit, and with her jewels on, and they reproach her with it every day.

Husb.– She did go too fine, indeed.

Wife. – Do you think she would have done so, if she had known any thing of his circumstances?

Husb.– It may be not.

Wife. – No, no; she is a lady of too much sense, to allow us to suggest it.

Husb.– And why did he not let her have some notice of it?

Wife. – Why, he makes the same dull excuse you speak of; he could not bear to speak to her of it, and it looked so unkind to do any thing to straiten her, he could not do it, it would break his heart, and the like; and now he has broke her heart.

Husb.– I know it is hard to break in upon one's wife in such a manner, where there is any true kindness and affection; but —

Wife. – But! but what? Were there really a true kindness and affection, as is the pretence, it would be quite otherwise; he would not break his own heart, forsooth, but chose rather to break his wife's heart! he could not be so cruel to tell her of it, and therefore left her to be cruelly and villanously insulted, as she was, by the bailiffs and creditors. Was that his kindness to her?

Husb.– Well, my dear, I have not brought you to that, I hope.

Wife. – No, my dear, and I hope you will not; however, you shall not say I will not do every thing I can to prevent it; and, if it lies on my side, you are safe.

Husb.– What will you do to prevent it? Come, let's see, what can you do?

Wife. – Why, first, I keep five maids, you see, and a footman; I shall immediately give three of my maids warning, and the fellow also, and save you that part of the expense.

Husb.– How can you do that? – you can't do your business.

Wife. – Yes, yes, there's nobody knows what they can do till they are tried; two maids may do all my house-business, and I'll look after my children myself; and if I live to see them grown a little bigger, I'll make them help one another, and keep but one maid; I hope that will be one step towards helping it.

Husb. – And what will all your friends and acquaintance, and the world, say to it?

Wife. – Not half so much as they would to see you break, and the world believe it be by my high living, keeping a house full of servants, and do nothing myself.

Husb. – They will say I am going to break upon your doing thus, and that's the way to make it so.

Wife. – I had rather a hundred should say you were going to break, than one could say you were really broke already.

Husb. – But it is dangerous to have it talked of, I say.

Wife. – No, no; they will say we are taking effectual ways to prevent breaking.

Husb. – But it will put a slur upon yourself too. I cannot bear any mortifications upon you, any more than I can upon myself.

Wife. – Don't tell me of mortifications; it would be a worse mortification, a thousand times over, to have you ruined, and have your creditors insult me with being the occasion of it.

Husb. – It is very kind in you, my dear, and I must always acknowledge it; but, however, I would not have you straiten yourself too much neither.

Wife. – Nay, this will not be so much a mortification as the natural consequence of other things; for, in order to abate the expense of our living, I resolve to keep less company. I assure you I will lay down all the state of living, as well as the expense of it; and, first, I will keep no visiting days; secondly, I'll drop the greatest part of the acquaintance I have; thirdly, I will lay down our treats and entertainments, and the like needless occasions of expense, and then I shall have no occasion for so many maids.

Husb. – But this, my dear, I say, will make as much noise almost, as if I were actually broke.

Wife. – No, no; leave that part to me.

Husb. – But you may tell me how you will manage it then.

Wife. – Why, I'll go into the country.

Husb. – That will but bring them after you, as it used to do.

Wife. – But I'll put off our usual lodgings at Hampstead, and give out that I am gone to spend the summer in Bedfordshire, at my aunt's, where every body knows I used to go sometimes; they can't come after me thither.

Husb. – But when you return, they will all visit you.

Wife. – Yes, and I will make no return to all those I have a mind to drop, and there's an end of all their acquaintance at once.

Husb. – And what must I do?

Wife. – Nay, my dear, it is not for me to direct that part; you know how to cure the evil which you sensibly feel the mischief of. If I do my part, I don't doubt you know how to do yours.

Husb. – Yes, I know, but it is hard, very hard.

Wife. – Nay, I hope it is no harder for you than it is for your wife.

Husb. – That is true, indeed, but I'll see.

Wife. – The question to me is not whether it is hard, but whether it is necessary.

Husb. – Nay, it is necessary, that is certain.

Wife. – Then I hope it is as necessary to you as to your wife.

Husb. – I know not where to begin.

Wife. – Why, you keep two horses and a groom, you keep rich high company, and you sit long at the Fleece every evening. I need say no more; you know where to begin well enough.

Husb. – It is very hard; I have not your spirit, my dear.

Wife. – I hope you are not more ashamed to retrench, than you would be to have your name in the Gazette.

Husb. – It is sad work to come down hill thus.

Wife. – It would be worse to fall down at one blow from the top; better slide gently and voluntarily down the smooth part, than to be pushed down the precipice, and be dashed all in pieces.

There was more of this dialogue, but I give the part which I think most to the present purpose; and as I strive to shorten the doctrine, so I will abridge the application also; the substance of the case lies in a few particulars, thus: —

I. The man was melancholy, and oppressed with the thoughts of his declining circumstances, and yet had not any thought of letting his wife know it, whose way of living was high and expensive, and more than he could support; but though it must have ended in ruin, he would rather let it have gone on till she was surprised in it, than to tell her the danger that was before her.

His wife very well argues the injustice and unkindness of such usage, and how hard it was to a wife, who, being of necessity to suffer in the fall, ought certainly to have the most early notice of it – that, if possible, she might prevent it, or, at least, that she might not be overwhelmed with the suddenness and the terror of it.

II. Upon discovering it to his wife, or rather her drawing the discovery from him by her importunity, she immediately, and most readily and cheerfully, enters into measures to retrench her expenses, and, as far as she was able, to prevent the blow, which was otherwise apparent and unavoidable.

Hence it is apparent, that the expensive living of most tradesmen in their families, is for want of a serious acquainting their wives with their circumstances, and acquainting them also in time; for there are very few ladies so unreasonable, who, if their husbands seriously informed them how things stood with them, and that they could not support their way of living, would not willingly come into measures to prevent their own destruction.

III. That it is in vain, as well as unequal, for a tradesman to preach frugality to his wife, and to bring his wife to a retrenching of her expenses, and not at the same time to retrench his own; seeing that keeping horses and high company is every way as great and expensive, and as necessary to be abated, as any of the family extravagances, let them be which they will.

All this relates to the duty of a tradesman in preventing his family expenses being ruinous to his business; but the true method to prevent all this, and never to let it come so far, is still, as I said before, not to marry too soon; not to marry, till by a frugal industrious management of his trade in the beginning, he has laid a foundation for maintaining a wife, and bringing up a family, and has made an essay by which he knows what he can and cannot do, and also before he has laid up and increased his stock, that he may not cripple his fortune at first, and be ruined before he has begun to thrive.