A DISAGREEABLE OBJECT, EXETER, 1838

"LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS! - A friend called upon a gentleman residing in St David's parish, a few days since, and on surveying the scenery around enquired  'What building is that?'  To which the gentleman replied,  'It is the St. Thomas' Union or a Workhouse.'

"'O!' said the friend, 'then your property is injured many hundreds a year for having such a disagreeable object in sight.'

"'I differ from you,' answered the gentleman,  'I think it is a great benefit to my estate; for when I see that building, it teaches me a useful lesson; it preaches me a better sermon on prudence than I ever heard from the pulpit.  I tell you what it says - LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS.'"`  

This curious snippet of  conversation (did it ever take place?) was reported in The Devon and Exeter Gazette  of 10th September 1838.

The gentleman sounds to me like a cherry-lipped moraliser.

The friend sounds like an estate-agent.

The Micauberian virtue prudence was to be much extolled in the Victorian Age. (This was published just after Victoria's coronation.)  If you were not prudent you could end  in the 'Union' or, like Wlkins Micauber did, in the debtors' prison.

We don't hear so much about prudence these days.