WOMAN AND HER MONEY. Tho Author of "John Halifax Gentleman " Talks Wisely.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 183, 18 December 1886, Page 12

WOMAN AND HER MONEY. Tho Author of "John Halifax Gentleman " Talks Wisely.

Every girl who is not entirely dependent on hor male relations— a position which, considering all the up 3 and downs of life, the sooner ehe gets out of rhe better — ought, by the time ehe ie old enough to possess any money to know exactly how much she ham, where it is inve=ted, and what it ought yearly to bring in. By this time also eho should have acquired some knowledge of business — bank bueine&a, roferring to checquea, dividends, and co ou — and a? much of nrdinar} 7 busineee as ahe can. To her information of a practical kind never comes amis?, especially the three golden rules, which have very rare exceptions : No investment of over 5 per cent, is really safe ; truat no one with your money without sucurity, which ought to be as Strict between tho nearest and deaiest friends ac between etrangors ; and lastly, koop all your affairs from day to day in as accurate order as if you had to die tomorrow. The mention of dying suggests another necessity— as soon as you aro twenty-one years of age make your wilj. You will not die a day the sooner ; you can alter it whenever you like, while the ease ot mi»d it will be to you, and the trouble il may save to those that come after you are beyond telling. It cannot be too strongly impi eased upon every girl who has or expects that not undesirable thing, "an income of her own," what a fortunate responsibility it is, and how useful she may make it to others. Happier than the lot of many married women is that of the "unappropriated blessing," as I have heard an old maid called, who* has her money, lesa or more, in her own hands, and can use it as she chooses, generously as wisely, without asking anybody's leave and being accountable for it to ho one. But then she must have learned from hor youth upward not to use it ; she must not spare any amount of trouble in the using of it, and she must console herself for many a lonely regret — we are not human, all ot us— with the thought that she lias been trusted to bo a steward of the Great Master. Such an old maid often does as m«ch*good m her generation as twenty married women.