Yachting, which also runs away with a great deal of money, comes under a very different category. It is a health-giving and often strenuous occupation, and the seamen employed are, anyhow, deriving incidentally some positive benefit from the life they lead. Nevertheless, out of the 4655 private yachts registered in the current year (an increase of over 3500 in the last forty years),[8] only a very small proportion are actually navigated by owners who have any knowledge or love of seamanship. The great majority are floating houses of luxury (viz. a 700-ton steam yacht, for which £25 a day is paid for coal when in use), or racing yachts, mere toys used to minister to the fanciful pleasures of the rich. But in expressing the strongest disapproval of these excessive luxuries, it is not for a moment suggested that people should rush into the opposite extreme--live in discomfort and adopt the craze for “the simple life,” which is only an inverted form of vanity and ostentation. There are many of the lesser luxuries which give great pleasure and sufficient honest gratification to justify their existence. There may even be some reluctance in condemning extravagance, because the nature of the extravagant man is far preferable to the economical and cautious disposition which sometimes sinks into niggardly meanness. Moreover, any attempt at excessive restrictions and unnecessarily harsh discipline in the upbringing of children invariably leads to a violent reaction in the direction of profligacy and extravagance. Let human nature be allowed free play in all directions; but it is not taking up the attitude of an ascetic or of a prig to condemn unhesitatingly unnatural excesses, reckless licence, the extremes of self-indulgence and greed, the exercise of which by some few involves the neglect, misery, and ruin of so many others. Thieves when they steal use violence and are pronounced enemies of society. These few people, by a silent conspiracy in which we all seem to acquiesce, are also stealing and are equally enemies of society. Chapter IV The rich man’s charities--His generosity--His hospitality--His land--The Feudal System--His responsibilities--The agricultural problem. We must now turn from what the rich man spends on himself and consider what good and what harm he does by his subscriptions and donations to philanthropic and charitable objects.