The first question is, How to get money? The second, How to invest it?
The general distrust of money concerns is seen in the enormous deposits
in the savings banks–a disposal of savings which yields the smallest
returns–and also in the readiness, not to say rush, to take government
bonds when only three per cent. or even less is offered. We give a few
of the best paying investments, but the list is by no means exhaustive.
The first four are in a section (Brooklyn Borough) of a single city, but
there is no reason to doubt that other cities, and other sections of the
same city, can make an equally good showing. Indeed, many Western
concerns pay much higher dividends.
947. ILLUMINATING COMPANIES.–Of the ten illuminating companies of
Brooklyn, not one last year paid a less dividend than five per cent.,
and one paid ten per cent.
948. TRUST COMPANIES.–Of the eight trust companies in the same borough,
only one paid less than eight per cent., and that paid six. The highest
paid sixteen per cent.
949. BANKS.–Of the twenty-three banks of Brooklyn, State and National,
one paid its stockholders sixteen per cent.; one fourteen; two, twelve;
one, ten; and four, eight; only one paid less than five per cent.
950. INSURANCE COMPANIES.–Of the four local insurance companies, one
paid its stockholders twenty per cent., and the others twelve, ten and
five.
951. TIN PLATE COMPANY.–All the tin manufacturers of the country are
about to be associated in one great company, to be known as the American
Tin Plate Company. The stockholders expect to double their profits.
952. POTTERY COMBINATION.–Under the laws of New Jersey, the pottery
trust has just been organized with a capital of $20,000,000. The price
of the stock is rapidly advancing.
953. CONSOLIDATED ICE.–An ice company, to be called the Consolidated
Ice, will soon control all the trade of New York City. Prices are to go
up, and profits, instead of a meager four or five per cent., as at
present, will, it is expected, be eight or ten per cent.
954. FLOUR TRUST.–British and American stockholders have combined to
form one of the biggest trusts in the world. The capital of the new
company will be about $150,000,000, and the output 95,000 barrels of
flour daily. Should the profits be only twenty-five cents a barrel, the
net earnings will be nearly $25,000 a day; but it is expected that with
the increased price, the profits will be at least double that figure.
955. FURNITURE COMBINE.–This is a new trust which is soon to be
floated, and which proposes to control the manufacture of all the school
furniture in the United States. The capital is to be $17,000,000. Some
idea of the enormous profits awaiting the stockholders may be formed
when it is stated that the present output is more than $15,000,000. The
combination means decreased expenses in operation, higher prices for
customers, and, of course, greater incomes for stockholders.
956. TELEPHONE MONOPOLY.–One of the greatest monopolies of the country
is that of the Bell Telephone. The company has increased its capital
stock in eighteen years from $110,000 to $30,000,000. In that time it
has earned $42,903,680. It pays dividends of eighteen per cent., and
could pay more, if allowed to do so by its charter. The surplus is used
to increase the capital stock, so that in addition to its enormous
dividends, every little while it presents its stockholders with new
blocks of this exceedingly profitable stock. The present price of shares
is about $280.
957. A GREAT ELECTRICAL COMPANY.–Another of Bellamy’s dreams is to be
realized. New York capitalists, with millions of dollars at their
command, have united in a great scheme to supply electrical energy to
run the elevated and surface railroads and the factories of the
metropolis. They propose to do away with steam entirely, except for
heating purposes. They will control more than 1,000 square miles of the
watersheds of the Catskills, and the mountain streams will be harnessed
to furnish electricity for New York. The company claim to have the
names of such well known persons as Thomas C. Platt, Silas B. Dutcher,
and Edward Lauterbach as interested persons in the scheme, and it is
said that the undertaking will be on a much grander scale than the
similar one at Niagara, to which the Vanderbilts, the Webbs, and other
famous manipulators of finance have furnished backing. If this scheme
should materialize, it will undoubtedly be one of the best paying
investments.
958. INDUSTRIAL STOCKS.–Here is a partial list of the best paying
stocks. Of course, where the interest is large, the price of the stocks
is correspondingly high. The investor, before paying the high prices
asked, should use his best judgment in considering whether the present
rates are likely to be maintained. The highest dividends on industrial
stocks last year were as follows: Adams’ Express, 8; Consolidated Gas
(New York), 8; Peter Lorillard (tobacco), 8; American Tobacco, 9;
Diamond Match, 10; American Sugar Refining Company, 12; American Bell
Telephone, 18; Standard Oil, 33; Welsbach Light, 80.
959. RAILROADS DIVIDENDS.–Stock in such railroads as the Pennsylvania,
Lake Shore, Michigan Central, New York Central, New York and New Haven,
are safe and profitable investments, if you can get them. The last-named
road has paid ten per cent. for many years, though recently the figures
have dropped to eight. The railroad stocks paying the highest dividends
last year were as follows: New York, New Haven and Hartford, 8 per
cent.; Great Southern (Alabama), 9; Manchester and Lawrence, 10; Norwich
and Worcester, 10; Boston and Providence, 10; Connecticut River, 10;
Georgia, 11; Northern (New Hampshire), 11; Philadelphia, Germantown and
Northern, 12; Pennsylvania Coal, 16.
960. LODGING HOUSE.–A man leased an abandoned hotel, containing 100
small rooms, and fitted them up with single beds. He charged a uniform
price of twenty-five cents a night. The location was down town in New
York, the congested district where congregate travelers, tradesmen,
workingmen, and the vast class of floaters. His rooms were nearly always
full. Income per day, $25. Daily expenses: Night clerk, $2; two
chambermaids ($15 each per month), $1. Rent, $5; lights, $1; laundry,
$3; sundries, $1. Total expenses per day, $13. Net profit, $12 per day.
He says, “I am sure I could double these profits if I could double my
accommodations.”
961. REAL ESTATE.–A young man twenty-one years of age, and possessing
$500, bought a tract of land in the outskirts of a suburban city for
$1,500. The tract contained twenty acres, and he paid $500 down and gave
a mortgage for the remainder. He had the property surveyed and divided
into lots, eight to the acre. The tract was located on the bend of a
river, and he called it “Riverside Park.” Lots were advertised for sale
at $100 each. The first year he cleared off the mortgage by the sale of
lots. He had remaining 145 lots. In five years he sold all these lots at
an average price of $85. Total amount received for lots, $13,825. Price
of land, $1,500. Taxes, $625. Surveying, grading, etc., $762.
Advertising and other methods of booming the property, $1,272. Total
cost and expenses, $3,534. Net profit, $10,291. By repeating this
process on a larger scale in another city, this young man, who started
at sixteen years of age with nothing, and by hard work and economy had
save $500 at twenty-one, found himself at the age of forty with
$100,000. The secrets of his success were four: Shrewdness in foreseeing
where property would be likely to advance; energy in quickly changing
the property from a farm into building lots; taste in making them
attractive, and giving the place a pretty name; and, most important of
all, the knowing how to create a market. We have known this process
repeated by others with almost equally marked success. In all our large
cities there are land companies developing suburban property and making
money rapidly.
Lost! somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set
with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone
forever.
962. FIVE MINUTES A DAY before a box of paints or a bunch of finely
shaded ribbons will make you expert in colors, a position of great
importance and large salary in many stores.
963. TEN MINUTES A DAY practicing stenography after you have learned the
system from a good text-book, will fit you in a year’s time to take any
place where the services of a short-hand writer are required.
964. FIFTEEN MINUTES A DAY cutting out of newspapers data in regard to
persons of note and classifying the same, will give you in a few years
an accumulation of material which you can dispose of to advantage to
reporters and publishers on sudden demand of such matter–as the
occasion of the death of the men in the public eye.
965. TWENTY MINUTES A DAY drumming on a writing machine should give you
an expertness with the keys that will insure steady and profitable
employment.
966. TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES A DAY will enable you to master any language in
a year, then tutorships, professorships, and translations of foreign
works at good prices, await your energy.
967. THIRTY MINUTES A DAY running rapidly over figures will make you an
expert accountant, if not even a lightning calculator, for whose
services business men are willing to pay liberally. Time is money.
968. THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES A DAY writing up some incident of news will
give you a facility of the pen in the course of one or two years, so
that you can command a good salary as a reporter. Success in this
department depends upon a writer’s imagination and skill.
969. FORTY MINUTES A DAY over reading selections will make you an
elocutionist. Readers and reciters receive all the way from $10 to $100
for an evening’s work.
970. FORTY-FIVE MINUTES A DAY will give you a knowledge of bookkeeping
in all its branches. Let the spare time be spent in acquiring a plain,
round business hand. Then master a book on the subject. After that you
should offer your services free to a friend for three-quarters of an
hour every day. Bookkeepers command from $1,000 to $3,000 salary.
971. FIFTY MINUTES A DAY divided into periods of twenty-five minutes
each, should make you a good singer, even if you have only a mediocre
voice. One quarter’s work under a good teacher should give you the
rudiments of the art, together with foundation practice, and from this
you can go on by yourself. You can always get a friend who will correct
your faults _gratis_, and it is the elimination of faults, with steady
practice, that brings success. Singers in churches command all the way
from $100 to $5,000 a year. And the work is done chiefly on Sundays,
when it does not conflict with other employments.
972. FIFTY-FIVE MINUTES A DAY with a book containing teacher’s
examination questions, will give you such a command of the branches
taught in our public schools as to insure you a position on the
educational staff. You should master not one book only, but all you can
procure which have a list of questions asked at examinations. Teachers
get from $500 to $5,000, according to ability.
973. SIXTY MINUTES A DAY imitating the styles of our best story-tellers
will give you, as it did Stevenson, an easy command of all styles, and
an ability to write stories netting thousands of dollars.
974. SEVENTY-FIVE MINUTES A DAY will make you in the course of four or
five years an engraver or painter in all the fields of the increasing
application of those arts. Prices for this kind of work are so varied
that no figures can be given, but they are always high, and some persons
have made fortunes with pen and brush.
975. EIGHTY MINUTES A DAY placing letters in pigeon holes and in
learning such other knowledge as any handler of the mails will willingly
impart to you, will give you such deft fingers and such quick brains
that it should not be difficult for you to secure a well-paid position
in a large postoffice.
976. NINETY MINUTES A DAY will enable you to master the intricate and
almost infinite details of the insurance business in all its branches.
Knowledge of the business and ability to persuade men are the two
requisites of highest success in this occupation. There are insurance
agents receiving as high as $10,000 a year, and presidents of companies
$25,000, and even more. There is no reason why you should not reach the
top. The horses, Plod and Pluck, will draw you there.
977. ONE HUNDRED MINUTES A DAY will initiate you thoroughly into the
banking or brokerage business. Read all books on the subject, classify
your knowledge, repeat it over and over in your spare moments, ask some
friend in the business about any point you do not understand. After
three years of hard study, offer your spare time free to a banker or
broker, informing him of what you have done. You will have to begin at
the bottom, but the salaries grow fat as you rise, and are enormously
rich at the top.
978. ONE HUNDRED AND TEN MINUTES A DAY will give you for each year of
your study a knowledge of a separate branch of the Civil Service. Five
years will give you five branches. Appointments are now nearly all made
by competitive examination. Salaries in some departments rise as high as
$10,000.
979. ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY MINUTES A DAY should enable you to master
any musical instrument under the sun. You will require a teacher for a
part of the time, but the most important thing is steady, persistent
practice. The field for good music is constantly widening, the demands
for good musicians are steadily increasing, and the remuneration is
correspondingly advancing. Money is literally pouring into the lap of
persons who can captivate the human ear.
Economy is quite as large a factor as industry in the gaining of a
fortune. With people living on small incomes, it is often the one
element that determines whether they “make both ends meet,” or run in
debt and ultimately fail. The following example shows how one family,
whose income was only $700 a year, actually saved $100. Mr. —-, of —-,
found himself getting behind in money matters, and determined to
practice rigid economy. He found a great many leakages in the household.
Perhaps some one who reads this will find the same or similar leaks, and
learn why he is not prospering:
980. WASTE.–Scraps of meat thrown away, making loss of dinners worth,
$12.50; puddings thrown away, $6; waste of coal in not sifting, $5;
one-half barrel of apples from not sorting, $1.50; wash tub fell to
pieces because left dry, $1; one-fourth loaf of bread every day thrown
away (90 loaves at 10 cents per loaf), $9; ten dozen preserves,
one-fourth lost at twenty-five cents per can, $7.50; twenty barrels of
ashes, five cents per barrel, $1; waste of bones which could be used for
soup, $1.50; waste of heat at the damper, one-tenth in a ton of coal,
ten tons per year, $5; waste of gas in not turning down lights when not
needed, $12; canned salmon, one-fourth spoiled because can was left
open, twenty-five cans, $1; cheese (one-half used, the rest thrown away
because hard), twenty-five pounds, $2; potatoes, for want of sprouting,
one barrel, $1; clothing, for lack of attention, $15; milk, 375 quarts
at eight cents per quart, one-fifth allowed to spoil, $6; umbrellas
which could be mended, $1; shoes thrown away when they could be used by
having heels fixed, $3; kitchen slops, $1; waste of vegetables, $5; wear
of carpet for lack of rugs in places most used, $3; Total waste, $100.
