Perhaps the worst feature about the possession of wealth, is that it tends to dwarf and belittle the finer sensibilities of man. Its acquisition becomes a passion of such violence that, in the majority of cases, its possessor no longer cares for anything but the few paltry pleasures which it will buy. And as few as these apparently are, they are even less upon closer examination, since only the counterfeits of anything of real moral value can be purchased for money. Purity, sincerity, culture, or love, owing to their nature, never could be bought for gold. Yet many an individual has acquired the opposite of the four "pearls of great price" just mentioned, by having too much money at his disposal; and most truly has it been said that "poverty is one of the greatest teachers of virtue." In fact, if it were not for the truth of our American aphorism, that "three generations cover the time it takes one of our wealthy families to go from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves," our wealthy aristocracy would be much more profligate. There can be no heritage of equal value to children, so long as their poverty does not interfere with their fundamental education, comparable to their being born in straitened, rather than in opulent, circumstances. Consequently, we must accept the fact that beyond a small competence set aside against age, money has no value of moment, nor is it worthy of greater than a reasonable effort being spent to acquire it. In this age of bustle and hurry, the nervous system is operated at a very high tension, and as a result often refuses to do the work demanded of it. As a consequence, artificial stimulants are resorted to, with the most baneful effects upon our citizen body. Caffine, thermo-bromine, nicotine, narcine, alcohol, and, frequently, chloral, cocaine, morphine, and hyoscine, are used in some quantity, and often under several forms, for this purpose by over seventy-five per cent. of our population; and we have seen the statement that over ninety per cent. of the males, over the age of twenty-one, are addicted to some narcotic habit in this country. As a result of this, the vitality of the individual, suffering from these habits, is eventually lowered, owing to the effect which such stimulants have upon the involuntary muscular fibre; while the over-wrought nervous system, sooner or later, collapses, and we become, both mentally and physically, human wrecks. Particularly is the taking of the weaker stimulants, such as are more commonly used, harmful to children, inasmuch as, at this period of development, nature has about all that she can well care for, without interference from the outside, and abnormal activity of the imagination at this time is not to be desired; since, under these circumstances with the majority of human beings, the imaginative impulse runs more to sensual than to æsthetic things.