they formerly bought only one. That's the way it
happens.'"

"Then," continued my polite and communicative informant, "look at the
article of pins. You ladies, who use so many more than our sex, have
never been able to tell what becomes of them. You know that of late
years you have been using the American solid-head pins, which were
produced so cheaply as immediately to supersede the foreign article.
Now," said he, with a smile, "don't you think you use up six pins you
formerly used only one? Careful people, twenty years ago, when they saw
one on the pavement, or on the parlor-floor, stopped and picked it up;
but now they pass it by, or sweep it into the dust-pan. Is it not so,
and have not careful people ceased to exist?"

I confess that the illustration was so full of point that some
indistinct conviction of its truth came over me; it was really my own
experience.

"So you see," he continued, "that, while of all these new and cheaply
manufactured articles there is a vast consumption, there is also a vast
waste. People--that is, prudent people--generally take care of things
according to their cost. You don't wear your best bonnet in the rain. It
is precisely so with our cuffs and collars. We sell them so cheaply that
some people wear three or four a day, while a careful person would make
one suffice. When the collar was attached to the shirt, it served for a
much longer time; what but cheapness and convenience can tempt to such
wastefulness now? My family, at least the female portion, use these
articles about as extravagantly, and I think your whole sex must be
equally fond of indulging in the same lavish use of them,--otherwise the
consumption could not be so great as you see it is."

I could not but inwardly plead guilty to this weakness of indulging in
clean cuffs and collars,--neither could I fail to recognize the
soundness of this reasoning, which must have grown out of superior
knowledge. It gave me new light, and settled a great many doubts.

"I suppose, Miss," he resumed, as if unwilling to leave anything
unexplained, "you use friction-matches at home? Now you know how cheap
they are,--two boxes for a cent. But I remember when one box sold for
twenty-five cents. People were then careful how they used them, and it
was not everybody who could afford to do so. The flint and tinder-box
were long in going out of use. But how is it now? Instead of one match
serving to light a cigar, the smokers use two or three.