In many a humbler family it is the same. It would seem as though occasionally a sport of some ignoble, sordid, selfish element broke out in a stock that has been noted for its self-respect, its goodness and generosity, and the wretched creature in which is this vein of baseness undoes in a few years everything that it has taken his ancestors many years of prudence, self-sacrifice, and forethought to construct. The writer remembers the instance of a gentleman in the North of England of excellent abilities, of many extended estates, and of illustrious name. He, however, had the misfortune to inherit his fortune early; he had lost his father and mother when quite a boy, and when he came into his estates he galloped through them, selling one property and mansion after another, till he came to spend his last days in a cottage. Throughout, one had pitied the man rather than blamed him, because he had not been taught his duties to God and man at a mother's knee. But one day the writer said to him, "Well! I suppose that if we began life again, you and I, with our experiences, we should live very differently." "Not a bit of it," he answered promptly, with a merry laugh, "I'd go through the same round to ruin again." After that, the spring of pity for the man dried up. A man who cannot learn by experience, who has no feeling for the shame and sorrow he has caused his family, deserves only contempt. As a boy I remember seeing a painting of a young gentleman with a flat feeble face, and powdered hair, and laced coat. It was riddled with small holes. I asked the reason. It was the portrait of the family scapegrace, who had alienated the paternal acres and mansion, and for three generations that picture had been used for the children to shoot darts at. So alone did that good-for-naught prove of the slightest use, in that to future generations he was held up as the butt of scorn and loathing in the family, as the one man who in a few years had wrecked what it had taken an illustrious ancestry many centuries to accumulate. The first token of the course the scapegrace is going to take is when he begins to fell the stately trees that have been growing in his park about his estate for over a hundred years. I will quote a scene from Coleman's capital comedy of _The Poor Gentleman_, which held up to detestation a man very common in that age. "_An apartment in_ SIR CHARLES CROPLAND'S _house_. SIR CHARLES CROPLAND _at breakfast; his_ valet de chambre _adjusting his hair_. "_Sir Chas._ What day of the month was it yesterday, when I left town? "_Valet._ The first of April, Sir Charles. "_Sir Chas._ Umph! When Mr. Warner (the steward) comes, show him in. "_Valet._ I shall, Sir Charles. [_Exit._ "_Sir Chas._ This same lumbering timber upon my ground has its merits. Trees are notes issued from the bank of Nature, and as current as those payable to Abraham Newland. I must get change for a few oaks, for I want cash consumedly. So, Mr. Warner.