st thorough moral training can
overrule this innate depravity.

2. A child naturally fair-minded, may become dishonest by parental
example. He is early taught to be sharp in bargains, and vigilant for
every advantage. Little is said about honesty, and much upon shrewd
traffic. A dexterous trick, becomes a family anecdote; visitors are
regaled with the boy's precocious keenness. Hearing the praise of his
exploits, he studies craft, and seeks parental admiration by adroit
knaveries. He is taught, for his safety, that he must not range beyond the
law: that would be unprofitable. He calculates his morality thus: _Legal
honesty is the best policy_,--dishonesty, then, is a bad bargain--and
therefore wrong--everything is wrong which is unthrifty. Whatever profit
breaks no legal statute--though it is gained by falsehood, by unfairness,
by gloss; through dishonor, unkindness, and an unscrupulous conscience--he
considers fair, and says: _The law allows it._ Men may spend a long life
without an indictable action, and without an honest one. No law can reach
the insidious ways of subtle craft. The law allows, and religion forbids
men, to profit by others' misfortunes, to prowl for prey among the
ignorant, to over-reach the simple, to suck the last life-drops from the
bleeding; to hover over men as a vulture over herds, swooping down upon
the weak, the straggling, and the weary. The infernal craft of cunning
men, turns the law itself to piracy, and works outrageous fraud in the
hall of Courts, by the decision of judges, and under the seal of Justice.

3. Dishonesty is learned from one's employers. The boy of honest parents
and honestly bred, goes to a trade, or a store, where the employer
practises _legal_ frauds. The plain honesty of the boy excites roars of
laughter among the better taught clerks. The master tells them that such
blundering truthfulness must be pitied; the boy evidently has been
neglected, and is not to be ridiculed for what he could not help. At
first, it verily pains the youth's scruples, and tinges his face to frame
a deliberate dishonesty, to finish, and to polish it. His tongue stammers
at a lie; but the example of a rich master, the jeers and gibes of
shopmates, with gradual practice, cure all this. He becomes adroit in
fleecing customers for his master's sake, and equally dexterous in
fleecing his master for his own sake.

4. EXTRAVAGANCE is a prolific source of dishonesty. Extravagance,--which
is foolish e