in
which, for convenience sake, or in order to secure celerity of
execution, a few wealthy persons generously advance the whole sum
required for a project, being quite willing to pay it themselves, unless
they meet with ready and cheerful co-operation.

In the department of social intercourse, there are several applications
of existing moral principles, and specially of the softer virtues of
kindness, courtesy, and consideration for others, the observance of
which would sensibly sweeten our relations to our fellow-men and, to
persons of a sensitive temperament, render life far more agreeable and
better worth living than it actually is. A few of these applications I
shall attempt to point out. Amongst savage races, and in the less
polished ranks of civilized life, men who disagree, or have any grudge
against one another, resort to physical blows or coarse invective. In
polite and educated circles, these weapons are replaced by sarcasm and
innuendo. There are, of course, many advantages gained by the
substitution of this more refined mode of warfare, but the mere fact
that the intellectual skill which it displays gives pleasure to the
bystanders, and wins social applause, renders its employment far more
frequent than, on cool reflexion, could be justified by the occasions
for it. There can be no doubt that it gives pain, often intense pain,
especially where the victim is not ready enough to retaliate effectively
in kind. And there can be no more justification for inflicting this
peculiar kind of pain than any other, unless the circumstances are such
as to demand it. Any one, who will take the trouble to analyse his acts
and motives, will generally find, when he employs these weapons, that he
is actuated not so much by any desire to reform the object of his attack
or to deter, by these means, him or others from wrong-doing, as by a
desire to show off his own cleverness and to leave behind him a mark of
his power in the smart which he inflicts. These unamiable motives are
least justifiable, when the victim is a social inferior, or a person
who, by his age or position, is unable to retaliate on equal terms. To
vanity and cruelty are then added cowardice, and, though all these vices
may only be displayed on a very small scale, they are none the less
really present. It may be laid down, however difficult, with our present
social habits, it may be to keep the rule, that sarcasm should never be
employed, except deliberately, and