The general belief which often seizes upon the world in regard to some special falsehood is very surprising. Everybody on a sudden adopts an idea that some particular man is over head and ears in debt, so that he can hardly leave his house for fear of the bailiffs–or that some ill-fated woman is cruelly ill-used by her husband–or that some eldest son has ruined his father; whereas the man doesn’t owe a shilling, the woman never hears a harsh word from her lord.