Gazette Of The United States

FROM THE NORWICH PACKET.

Mr. Trumbull,

THE Prompter, is an entire stranger to me;
I know not who he is, nor where he lives,
but I would willingly travel twenty miles to see,
and shake hands with him :—He wrote excellently
on the subject of borrowing :-His observations
were well calculated to work a reformation in
the ugly customs of the people; but, I lament it,
my neighbors are no more moved by his writings,
than the wicked men of Sodom were by the hearty
expostulations of righteous Lot. I do not recollect
that Mr. Prompter said any thing about lending ;
but you know, that in weighing any article
or commodity in the scales, if one end of the
beam goes down the other end must of course go
up : So, where there is one borrower, there certainly
is one lender.—The scale-beam has but two
ends, and one end is always opposite to one end :
But there may be ten borrowers, and but one lender;
in that case it is hard, sure enough, on
the side of the lender. Suppose here is four, five or
six families, who think it best and cheapest for
them to borrow : and here is one who is well furnished
with a complete set of tools, agreeable to
my friend Prompter's advice ; will not the pa-
tience and all the tools of this one, soon be worn
out ? must he pace up and down all the morning
to get his tools and hand them out to his
neighbors, and be disturbed again at night to
receive them in ? Stop! no—he is not much
troubled about receiving them in at night ; his
neighbor keeps the tool till the next day, and
the next day ; and on the 4th or 5th day, the
obliging lender is under a necessity of using his
shovel ; where is it Tom? "I done know Sir Seem
to me some body borrow um tudderday." Tom is sent
a hunting round the neighbourhood—the thing
is found—the handle is broke—well Tom, this
is the way we get rich ; go, you must carry it to
the wood-worker, and get a new handle made to
it Tom. "Tese maa, dis no berry good wa to get
rich tho ; me hope masa nebber lend um shubble gin,
cuen nabel plage Tom Sole out, alwa borrow shubble
en hoe, en ax, en rake and dibble do no what all."
Tom Tom you must not wear out, if they do
plague your soul out.

Now I say Mr. Trumbull, I wish you would be
so obliging as to convey my compliments to Mr.
Prompter, and tell him I wish he would write
once more on the subject, hotter than ever, and
oblige yours,

TOM's MASTER.