THE RUBBISH KEEPING HABIT.
I VISITED an old house some time ago where everything wore a look of decay and ruin. Having occasion to go into the garret with a member of the family, I discovered an immense pile of rubbish, composed of broken old chairs, frames of broken mirrors, dilapidated wash-stands, ragged bedquilts, which had been carefully washed and laid away, and a rusty and useless stove. A chest in one corner was filled with torn books, which had neither beginning nor end, photographs from which the heads had been torn, a broken-backed and dog-eared album, half sheets of music, and pasteboard boxes, some without covers, and other covers without boxes. "For what in the world are you saving all this rubbish?" I queried. "Why don't you sell the rusty stove for old iron, and the bedquilts to the ragman, and make a bonfire of the contents of this chest?" The lady lifted her hands in protestation. "O you destructive creature!" she cried. "All these things may come handy some day. I always believe in saving everything. These pasteboard boxes, for instance, are handy in case you want to send away a photograph, and the old bedquilts would be just the thing to smother flame with in case of fire. There is nothing like economy, you know." "But this is not economy," I insisted. "If you were to sell all this rubbish to the ragman, it would bring you money enough to buy all the photograph envelopes you desire, with ready-made pasteboard backs, and hand grenades with which to extinguish fire." "I never heard of those things," she said. "No," I replied, "people who have a mania for accumulating old truck never do keep up with the times." The mind which is bent on saving a lot of useless and shabby old things becomes shabby and useless itself. It becomes incapacitated from earning and procuring the new and useful. I once heard a housekeeper of a country home complain that she had no room in the pantry to properly place her pans and dishes. I remarked to her that the two upper shelves were loaded with old medicine bottles, empty pill boxes, broken flatirons, and noseless teapots, and that she had better dig a hole in the ground and bury the whole mass, leaving room for her necessary articles. But she declared herself to be too saving to perform such an act. "Empty bottles are often handy," she said, "and I intend to have the flatirons and teapots mended some day." "But you never will," I said. "People who get into the habit of saving broken trash never get it mended. And you will never need more than two bottles out of that score. You would be able to think more clearly, and your mind would not become so tired over your work, if you had those two shelves cleaned off. Unconsciously to yourself, this cluttered condition, and the way you are obliged to crowd things in consequence, tax your mental powers."—New England Farmer.