Mortals and Others (Routledge Classics) by Bertrand Russell

Mortals and Others (Routledge Classics) by Bertrand Russell

Author:Bertrand Russell
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Humanities
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2009-03-04T00:00:00+00:00


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HOW PEOPLE ECONOMISE

When a family has less money than it used to have, it has to settle in what directions to economise. The choice which people make in these circumstances is an index to character, and often surprising.

There was once a noble lord who had had serious losses, and he called in a friend to recommend retrenchments. The friend, after a careful scrutiny, suggested that perhaps it was unnecessary to keep three pastry-cooks, to which the noble lord replied: 'But hang it all, my dear fellow, a man must have a biscuit.' He, I imagine, sought to save on string and by employing paper spills instead of matches.

In England people save on the education of their daughters, and on the food when they have no company. Men make their car last a year longer, and their clothes six months longer, than they would. They give up buying books, as authors know to their cost. But they hang on to their clubs so long as they can afford one decent suit.

The form of saving which most persons like best, when it is practicable, is of course saving at the expense of other people – cutting down wages, salaries, tips and so on. When this form of saving is not practicable, some personal hardship must be endured.

Women, as far as I have been able to observe, will cut down on food to a point which is injurious to health before they will begin to economise on clothes or cosmetics. On the whole, both men and women are less willing to abandon expenditure which improves their social status and commands the respect of neighbours than they are to forgo purely personal pleasures, such as those of eating and drinking. Among the poor, at any rate in England, a fine funeral is one of the last things to be relinquished. People would rather live miserably and die with splendour than have a happy life and an inglorious death.

In China this sort of thing is carried to even greater lengths. When I was living in Peking there was a girl who died of grief on her mother's death bed. This example of filial piety was so much admired that the family were given permission to erect a memorial arch across the street. The expenses of this arch and of a funeral appropriate to so honourable an occasion reduced her brothers from the status of prosperous professionals to that of rickshaw coolies, but they endured this fall without repining.

If I had money to invest, I should invest it in the piano trade. A lifetime of experience has persuaded me that whatever else people may save on they will not save on pianos. Why this is I cannot imagine; I merely record the fact. I have known newly married couples who hoped they would not have children as they wished to spend their income on grand pianos.

When last summer a portion of the British Navy mutinied, the cause was not generally known. The cause was



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