THINGS HARD TO BE UNDERSTOOD.
By G. P. Hugo
THERE are some things that I cannot understand. One is this, that people can stand it to lose a large sum, and cannot stand it to give the same large sum. I once asked a man for twenty-five thousand dollars for a college. He said it was utterly impossible. Two weeks632later he, by accident, lost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a round quarter of a million. When I met him and offered him my sympathy, he said, “Our house is a very strong one, and it will not affect us.” I asked another for sixty thousand dollars, and his wife said it would beggar them. He told a friend one year afterward that he wished he had given it to me, for, as I talked, he thought of the money it would take if he did do it, and that he had put it elsewhere, and lost it all and more than an equal sum to get out; but he would not feel it much! A farmer is shocked to be talked to about giving one hundred dollars; but when his best horse dies, nobody sees that it makes any difference. I cannot understand this thing. Will not those people please give us their testimony whether it does make any difference in the bank whether money is checked out to pay gifts or to pay losses? — G. P. Hugo.