A leaking tap is a great waster
Charles Spurgeon · John Ploughman's Pictures; or, More of His Plain Talk for Plain People
WASTER.
A LEAKING tap is a great waster.
Drop by drop, by day and by night,
the liquor runs away, and the housewife
(184)
THE LEAKIXG TAP. 185
wonders how so much can have gone.
This is the fashion in which many laboring
men are kept poor : they don't take care of
the pence, and so they have no pounds to put
in the bank. You cannot fill the rain-water
butt if you do not catch the drops. A six-
pence here, and a shilling there, and his
purse is empty before a man dares to look
in it. What with waste in the kitchen,
waste at table, and waste at the public-
house, fools and their money soon part to
meet no more. If the wife wastes too, there
are two holes in the barrel. Sometimes the
woman dresses in tawdry finery and gets in
debt to the tally-man ; and it is still worse
if she takes to the bottle. When the goose
drinks as deep as the gander, pots are soon
empty, and the cupboard is bare. Then
they talk about saving, like the man who
locked the stable door after his horse was
stolen. They will not save at the brim, but
promise themselves and the pigs that they
will do wonders when they get near the
bottom. It is well to follow the good old
rule : —
*' Spend so as ye may
Spend for many a day."
i86 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
He who eats all the loaf at breakfast may
whistle for his dinner, and get a dish of
empties. If we do not save while we have
it, we certainly shall not save after all is
gone. There is no grace in waste. Econ-
omy is a duty ; extravagance is a sin. The
old Book saith, " He that hasteth to be rich
shall not be innocent," and, depend upon it,
he that hasteth to be poor is in much the
same box. Stretch your legs according to
the length of your blanket, and never spend
all that you have :
" Put a little by ;
Things may go awry."
It will help to keep you from anxious
care, — which is sinful, if you take honest
care, — which is commendable. Lay up
when young, and you shall find when old ;
but do not this greedily or selfishly, or God
may send a curse on your store. Money
is not a comfort by itself, for they said in
the olden time —
*' They who have money are troubled about it,
And they who have none are troubled without it."
But though the dollar is not almighty, it
THE LEAKING TAP, 187
ought to be used /i?r the Almighty, and not
wasted in wicked extravagance. Even a
dog will hide up a bone which he does not
want, and it is said of wolves that they
gnaw not the bones till the morrow ; but
many of our working men are without thrift
or forethought, and, like children, they will
eat all the cake at once if they can. When
a frost comes they are poor frozen-out gar-
deners, and ask for charity, when they
ought to have laid up for a snowy day. I
wonder they are not ashamed of them-
selves. Those are three capital lines : —
" Earn all you can,
Save all you can,
Give all you can."
But our neighbor Scroggs acts on quite
a different rule-of-three, and tries three
other cans :
" Eat all you can,
Drink all you can.
Spend all you can."
He can do more of all these than is
canny ; it would be a good thing if he and
the beer-can were a good deal further
apart.
1 88 JOHX PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
I don't want any person to become a
screw, or a hoarder, or a lover of money,
but I do wish our working men would
make better use of what they get. It is
little enough, I know; but some make it
less by squandering it. Solomon com-
mends the good woman who " considereth
a field and buyeth it : with the fruit of her
hands she planteth a vineyard ; " he also
tells the sluggard to go to the ant, and see
how she stores for the winter. I am told
that ants of this sort do not live in England,
and I am afraid they dont ; but my master
says he has seen them in France, and I
think it would be a good idea to bring over
the breed. My old friend Tusser says, —
" 111 husbandry drinketh
Himself out of door;
Good Husbandry thinketh
Of friend and of poor."
The more of such good husbandry the
merrier for old England. You cannot burn
your faggots in autumn and then stack
them for the winter; if you want the calf to
become a cow, you must not be in a hurry
to eat neats' feet. Money once spent is
THE LEAKIXG TAP. 189
like shot fired from a gun, you can never
call it back. No matter how sorry you
may be, the goldfinches are out of the cage,
and they will not fly back for all your cry-
ing. If a fellow gets into debt it is worse
still, for that is a ditch in which man\' find
mud, but none catch fish. When all his
sugrar is crone, a man's friends are not often
very sweet upon him. People who have
nothing are very apt to be thought worth
nothing: mind, / don't say so, but a good
many do. Wrinkled purses make wrinkled
faces. It has been said that they laugh
most who have least to lose, and it may be
so ; but I am afraid that some of them laugh
on the wrong side of their faces. Foolish
spending buys a pennyworth of merry-mak-
ing, but it costs many a pound of sorrow.
The profligate sells his co\v to buy a
canary, and boils down a bullock to get
half-a-pint of bad soup, and that he throws
away as soon as he has tasted it. I should
not care to spend all my living to buy a
mouldy repentance, yet this is what many
a prodigal has done, and many more will
do.
My friend, keep money in thy purse : " It
I90 JOHN PLOUGHMAN'S PICTURES.
is one of Solomon's proverbs," said one;
another answered that it was not there.
" Then," said Kit Lancaster, " it might have
been, and if Solomon had ever known the
miss of a shilling he would have said it
seven times over." I think that he does
say as much as this in substance, if not in
so many words, especially when he talks
about the ant ; but be that how it may, be
sure of this, that a pound in the pocket is
as good as a friend at court, and rather
better; and if ever you live to want what
you once wasted, it will fill you with woe
enough to last you to your grave. He
who put a pound of butter on a gridiron,
not only lost his butter, but made such a
blaze as he won't soon forget : foolish
lavishness leads to dreadful wickedness, so
John Ploughman begs all his mates to fight
shy of it, and post off to the Post Office
Savings' Bank.
" For age and want save while you may ;
No morning's sun lasts all the day."
Money is not the chief thing, it is as far
below the grace of God and faith in Christ
as a ploughed field is below the stars ; but
THE LEAKING TAP. 191
still, godliness hath the promise of the life
that now is as well as of that which is to
come, and he who is wise enough to seek
first the kingdom of God and his righteous-
ness, should also be wise enough to use
aright the other things which God is
pleased to add unto him.
Somewhere or other I met with a set of
mottoes about gold, which I copied out,
and here they are : I don't know who first
pricked them down, but like a great many
of the things which are stuck together in
my books, I found them here and there,
and they are none of mine : at least, I can-
not claim the freehold, but have them on
copyhold, which is a fair tenure. If the
owners of these odds and ends will call for
them at the house where this book is pub-
lished they may have them on paying a
shilhng for the paper they are done up in.
MOTTOES ABOUT GOLD.
A vain man's motto is " Win gold and wear it."
A generous man's motto is.." Win gold and share it."
A miserly man's motto is. ..'* Win gold and spare it."
A profligate man's motto is." Win gold and spend it."
A banker's motto is " Win gold and lend it."
A gambler's motto is '• Win gold or lose it."
A wise man's motto is " Win gold and use it."