Only a Matter of Degree.

The penetrating mind of this same writer is led to the conclusion that all those who make use of credit, even to the smallest degree, must be included in the list of transgressors against nature's laws, proportionately of course as they sin—" If however, the whole truth must be said, the condemnation visited on these commercial vampires is not to be wholly confined to them; but is in some degree deserved by a much more numerous class. Between the penniless schemer, who obtains the use of capital by false pretences and the upright trader who never contracts liabilities greater than his estate will liquidate, there lie all gradations. From businesses carried on entirely with other people's capital obtained by forgery, we pass on to businesses in which there is a real capital of one-tenth, and a credit capital of nine-tenths; to other businesses in which the ratio of real to fictitious capital is somewhat greater; and so on, until we reach the very-extensive class of men who trade but a little beyond their means. By insensible steps we advance from the one extreme to the other; and these most pardonable transgressors cannot be wholly absolved from the criminality which so clearly attaches to the rest.