What Shall I Do with My Money?—Enormous Profits in Trust Companies—The Most Costly Bell in the World—The Bell Telephone—Edward Bellamy’s Vision—The Best Paying Stocks—$11 per Day in a Lodging House—How a Young Man Made $10,000—How to Start with Nothing and Be Worth $100,000 when You are 40 Years Old.
What Shall I Do with My Money?—Enormous Profits in Trust Companies—The Most Costly Bell in the World—The Bell Telephone—Edward Bellamy’s Vision—The Best Paying Stocks—$11 per Day in a Lodging House—How a Young Man Made $10,000—How to Start with Nothing and Be Worth $100,000 when You are 40 Years Old.
Thefirst 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 eightper 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 companyclaim 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 byhard 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.
Fortunes in Spare Moments—Millions Missed for Want of Economy of Time—Stories of Famous Men.
Fortunes in Spare Moments—Millions Missed for Want of Economy of Time—Stories of Famous Men.
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 Daybefore 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 Daypracticing 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 Daycutting 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 Daydrumming on a writing machine should give you an expertness with the keys that will insure steady and profitable employment.
966.Twenty-five Minutes a Daywill 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 Dayrunning 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 Daywriting 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 Dayover 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 Daywill 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 Daydivided 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 faultsgratis,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 Daywith 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 Dayimitating 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 Daywill 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 Dayplacing 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 Daywill enable you to master the intricate and almost infinite details of theinsurance 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 Daywill 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 Daywill 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 Dayshould 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.
How a Family Saved $100 on a Salary of $700.
How a Family Saved $100 on a Salary of $700.
Economyis 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.
A Thousand Ways to Make a Living—The Humbug of Great Names—The Mania for Old and Rare Things—The “Relic” Manufacture—The “Imitation Enterprise”—The “Box Office” Clique—The “Cure” Fad—The “Fake” News Agency—The Museum “Freak”—The “Treasure” Excitements—The “Literary” Bureau—The “Watered” Stock.
A Thousand Ways to Make a Living—The Humbug of Great Names—The Mania for Old and Rare Things—The “Relic” Manufacture—The “Imitation Enterprise”—The “Box Office” Clique—The “Cure” Fad—The “Fake” News Agency—The Museum “Freak”—The “Treasure” Excitements—The “Literary” Bureau—The “Watered” Stock.
Thereare ways of making money that lie so far out of the ordinary channels as to warrant this chapter. Some of them are only strange because they are new, as the telephone and the wood pulp were strange a generation ago. Others, being decidedly odd in themselves, will doubtless always be pursued only by a few, and considered by the many to be curious ways of making a living.
Success is easy when once you succeed. This is the case with goods which have achieved a name. Frequently the founder of the name is bankrupt, retired or dead; but the goods continue to be manufactured and sold under the original trade-mark. Countless thousands of dollars are paid every year for shoes, hats, hardware, groceries, and innumerable other articles, at rates above the average price when the goods are not a farthing better. The deluded buyers are simply paying for a name.
Others have a mania for the collection of all kinds of bric-à-brac—old coins and rare books are seized and hoarded as eagerly as if made of gold. This mania isharmless in itself, and gives its possessors no doubt much pleasure, but they are made the prey of Shylocks who carry on a regular trade of manufacturing “old” articles.
So also with the “relic” craze. There are actually manufactories where relics are made. Conscienceless persons take advantage of the curiosity and piety of travelers to palm off all sorts of “relics” upon them at preposterous prices.
Then there are the limitless imitations that are on the market. Some of them, such as patent medicines, brands of groceries, oleomargarine, etc., are imitations pure and simple; others are adulterations with more or less of the genuine. So vast and profitable are these methods of deception that the government has been compelled to interfere to protect its citizens from fraud.
The box-office clique is only a less pernicious, but equally barefaced, means of getting money. When a Bernhardt or an Irving is to perform, an announcement is made that the box-office will be open at 9 o’clock on a certain morning, as early as 10, or even 6, on the previous evening you will see a solitary man wend his way to the theater and silently square his back against the door. In time he is followed by another, and yet another, so that by midnight perhaps a dozen or twenty of these grim-faced men are lined against the wall. Not one of them has the slightest idea of seeing the play. It is simply their way of earning a living. For the next morning they will sell their places in line to the highest bidders.
Of the “cure” faddists there number is legion. We do not mean the makers of patent medicines, of which we have treated elsewhere, but the men who profess to believe they have some unique and original way of ridding mankind of evil. Thus we have the gold cure,the barefoot cure, the mind cure, the faith cure, the cold water cure, and the hot water cure—in fact the whole great family of ’pathies. Many of these curists no doubt are sincere, but whether so or not, they have reaped large sums of money.
Equally industrious is the “fake” news agency. There are agencies that manufacture news to order. Papers, they reason, must have news. If there is any subject concerning which the public is eager to read, and for any reason the reporters cannot give the facts, the “fake” news agency is a welcome resort. These bogus news agents are paid a certain amount a “stick” for their false news.
Museum “freaks” too, are manufactured to order, and sometimes are made beforehand in anticipation of a market.
“Treasure” enthusiasts are not quite as common now as formerly, and yet the hot Klondike fever is but a “Kid’s Buried Treasure” under another name, and on a mammoth scale. Of the 100 who attempt to get to Dawson City, seventy-five will reach the place, fifty will earn a bare living under all manner of hardships; twenty-five will make about the same as if they had stayed at home; ten will bring back a $100 worth of dust; three will do tolerably well, and one will get rich.
The “literary bureau” is a more ingenious means to make a living. A set of bright young men advertise that for a “consideration” they will send a sermon, lecture, address, or after-dinner speech, to any person who may suddenly find himself called upon when unprepared.
Of the “watered” stock and other incorporated swindles, almost every investor has purchased his experience at a dear rate. This is a method of increasingone’s capital stock in a company without the contribution of any new funds, and it is one of the most common of frauds.
These are but a few of the many curious and ingenious ways by which people attempt to make a living. In many cases, especially the last-named, there is no doubt that the promoters of these enterprises often do get rich at the expense of the public.
Other strange ways of making a living are the catching of butterflies or canary birds at a penny apiece, and the sifting of ashes and collecting of cinders. In London sand is sold on the street for scouring and as gravel for birds. Then there is “the curiosity shop.” In Genoa, there are marriage brokers who have a list of names of marriageable girls, divided into different classes, with an account of the fortunes, personal attraction, etc., of each. They charge two to three per cent. commission on a contract. In Munich there are female bill posters, and in Paris there are women who make a living by letting out chairs on the street. Also, in the same city, men are hired to cry the rate of exchange. Then there are the men who gather old clothes, and the street sweepers. There are 6,000 rag gatherers in Paris. Then there are the refuse cleaners, and the glass-eye makers, the latter furnishing you with a crystal eyeball at rates from $10 to $20 when the physicians and oculists charge $60 or $70 for similar services. Then there are postage stamp gatherers and chair menders. In fact the ways of making a living are legion. We formulate a few of the best of this class:
981.Experts.—There are many kinds—accountant, color, handwriting, etc. Any one who confines his life-work to a very small and special field can command a large price for his services. Experts often receive $10 a day.
982.Detectives.—Besides the men in the employ of the United States and local authorities, there are many who work in private agencies. The pay depends upon the nature of the work and the wealth of the employers. In celebrated cases where suspected parties had to be shadowed for months, a detective has received as much as $5,000.
983.Traveling Poets.—Since the days of Wesley, the traveling preacher has been a familiar figure, but who since the time of Homer has seen a traveling poet? yet one called on the author the other day. His patrons are chiefly obscure people who pay from $1 to $10 to have their history, home, achievements, or virtues lauded in verse. It is hardly necessary to say that the poems are not published, but kept as household treasures for coming grandchildren.
984.Old Coins.—Some have found a profitable source of revenue in the hunting and hoarding of old coins. One numismatist recently sold a dollar coin of 1804 for $5,000.
985.Purveyor of Personals.—A Russian named Romeitre started this enterprise in a small way. Now we have press-clipping bureaus so large as to employ seventy persons each. In some of these places from 5,000 to 7,000 papers are read every day, and the weekly clippings amount to more than 100,000. There are now press-clipping bureaus in nearly all of our large cities.
986.Gold on Sea Bottom.—Another class of men make money out of other men’s misfortunes; that is, by stripping wrecks of their valuables. Others secure the services of divers and search the bottom ofthe ocean, where vessels containing treasures are supposed to have gone down. A few years ago a company from England went with divers to a place near Bermuda, where a vessel had been sunk a long time before, and secured from the wreck the sum of $1,500,000.
987.Rare Books.—The art of book collecting has been pursued with profit by some persons. It requires no capital, if one simply confines his efforts to book-stalls, though, if pursued on a large scale, money is required for advertising and correspondence. Mr. Charles B. Foote, of New York City, is a veteran bibliophile, and has made a specialty of first editions. Recently he made three auction sales of his stores, and realized more than $20,000, and his home is full of treasures.
988.Old Italian Violins.—They sell at prices ranging from $500 to $5,000, when you can buy them at all, which is seldom, for they are mostly in the hands of wealthy collectors. Now we will let you into a great secret. It is not the kind of wood or the form of the instrument alone which produces the rare quality of sound, but it lies also in the kind of varnish used. By experimenting with varnish, you can produce a “Stradivarius,” which will sell for almost any amount you choose to ask.
989.Magic Silk.—It seems like the trick of the magician to speak of turning cotton into silk, but it can actually be done, or at least cotton can be made to resemble silk, so that discrimination between the two fabrics is impossible. About fifty years ago, one Mercer, a French chemist, showed that cotton when subjected to the action of concentrated acid or alkalies, contracts andhas a greater affinity for dyes, but it has only just been discovered that “mercerization” gives also a brilliant luster to the cotton. The cotton is stretched violently during the operation, and when an energetic rubbing is added to the tension the tissue receives a permanent luster. It thus replaces silk at a fraction of its cost, and offers a splendid chance for financial enterprise.
990.The Gold Cure.—If the gold cure for which so much is claimed can really take away the appetite for liquor, there is an immense field for its exercise and room for the making of many fortunes in the cure of America’s drunkards. In the United States alone an exceedingly moderate estimate makes the number of this unfortunate class 1,600,000. At the very modest calculation that only one-tenth of these can be induced to try the cure, and if each case nets the proprietor of the institution only $25—and the estimate should probably be doubled and even trebled—there are $15,000,000 in it for the public benefactors who can thus curb the evil of dram-drinking.
991.The Telephone Newspaper.—Here is an idea for newspaper men: In Budapest, Hungary, there is a telephone newspaper, the first and only one in the world. The main office is in telephone communication with the Reichstadt (corresponding to our Congress), and it often happens that important speeches are known to the public while the speaker is still addressing the house; the latest reports from stock exchanges as well as political news are heard before any paper has printed them, a short summary of all important items is given at noon and again in the evening; subscribers are entertained with music and literary articles in the evenings, the latter being often spoken into the telephoneby the original authors. The cost is only two cents a day, and the company are said to be making money even at that figure.
992.Race and Stock Tippers.—In addition to the regular brokers who supply tips to their customers, there is now a set of professional tippers who profess to have “inside information,” and make it a business to give tips to anybody who will pay for them. They receive in some cases a fixed sum from their patrons, and in other cases they take a liberal percentage of the profits.
993.Promoters.—This is a new vocation. The promoter “promotes” anything and everything that will pay. If you want to accomplish anything from the launching of a railroad enterprise to the selling of a penny patent, you pay the “promoter” a certain sum to do the work. He buys influence, lobbies legislators, controls newspapers and hypnotizes the public generally. Not all promoters come as high as Mr. Ernest Tooley, whose own price can be imagined when he claims to have paid $250,000 to English peers for their influence; yet we learn that the American Tin Plate Company gave the promoters of the Trust $10,000,000 in stock for their work.
Some Golden Plums—What Electrical Experts Get—The Confidential Man—Rapid Rise of an Advertising Agent—Editors in Clover—Railroad Presidents Come High—A $25,000 Engineer—The Paying Berths in Medicine—Some Astonishing Lawyers’ Fees—What Vanderbilt Paid a Steamboat Man.
Some Golden Plums—What Electrical Experts Get—The Confidential Man—Rapid Rise of an Advertising Agent—Editors in Clover—Railroad Presidents Come High—A $25,000 Engineer—The Paying Berths in Medicine—Some Astonishing Lawyers’ Fees—What Vanderbilt Paid a Steamboat Man.
Thereare some positions in which enormous salaries are paid. They are, of course, places where great responsibilities are incurred. Strange as it may seem, however, occupations where thousands of human lives are imperiled are not compensated at so high a rate as those where great finances are at stake. Here are a few of the golden plums:
994.Electrical Experts.—The use of electricity has so increased in the last few years, and so many new uses have been found for it, that there are to-day nearly fifty different departments of human labor where it is employed, and naturally these have differentiated as many kinds of electricians. A young man in a New York establishment says “I am in receipt of a salary of $4,000 as superintendent of the dynamo building, and recently I had an offer of $7,000 to go with a new company out West.”
995.The Confidential Man.—Another man in New York began his career in a store at wages of only $7 a week. He is now the firm’s confidential man, whodecides on all important purchases, and receives a salary of $8,000 a year.
996.The Advertising Agent.—The advertising agency is from a financial standpoint the most important department in the make-up of a paper or periodical. On one of our most popular magazines there is to-day a young man hardly over thirty years of age who has advanced through the various grades of work until he is now superintendent of the advertising department, receiving a remuneration of $7,000 a year.
997.Great Daily Editors.—Editors of leading departments in our great dailies receive from $2,000 upward. Managing editors and editors-in-chief receive many times that sum. One man in the New YorkSunoffice has for his services a salary of $15,000, and besides this does outside literary work to the amount of $5,000 yearly.
998.Medical Specialists.—There is still “room at the top” of the medical world. The largest harvests are reaped by those who devote themselves to particular parts of the human framework, and at last are able to set up as “consulting physicians.” One doctor, whose apartments are crowded daily, informed the author of this work that he was treating eleven hundred and fifty patients. The celebrated Dr. Loomis for some time before his death made $50,000 a year.
999.Legal Counselors.—What is true of medicine is equally so of the law. Specialists in such branches as real estate, legacies, insurance, etc., are in receipt of immense revenue. Celebrated bar-pleaders also have grown rich. The names of Rufus and Joseph Choate,of Wm. Evarts and Ben. Butler, are examples of men who have received single fees of $10,000. One young lawyer says: “I began seven years ago and during this period my earnings, with their investments, amount to $200,000.” Legal talent is also liberally paid for by the great corporations, all of which employ at a regular salary one or more attorneys.
1,000.Corporation Presidents.—Presidents of banks receive from $5,000 to $50,000; of insurance companies, there are at least three which pay their presidents $50,000; of railroad presidents, one receives $100,000, three receive $50,000, eight receives $20,000, and twelve $10,000.
In other occupations, deep-water divers are paid at the rate of $10 an hour and fractions thereof; circus managers, $5,000 a year; and the buying man of great mercantile firms about the same. Bank cashiers get from $4,000 to $7,000; custom house officers from $3,000 to $7,000; judges of city courts (New York), $6,000; lecturers from $10 to $200 per night; preachers, from $20,000 in John Hall’s pulpit to a pitiful $300 in some country town; school principals from $1,500 to $3,000. Among exceptional salaries may be mentioned that of a steamboat manager of the Vanderbilt lines on the Mississippi, who once received $60,000 a year; also the engineer of a large manufactory, who is paid $25,000. “Is not that high?” inquired a visitor at the works. “He is cheap for us,” was the reply, illustrating the truth that talent and skill are everywhere and always in demand. The concern could not afford to lose him to rival firms who wanted his services, and so found it cheaper to retain him even at that high figure.
We subjoin a table showing the average salary or wages in one hundred of the leading occupations. In most cases the figures have been compiled from government reports, but where no reports could be obtained an estimate has been made by taking the average receipts from certain districts. In the latter instances, of course, the table cannot be considered perfectly reliable; this is especially the case with the professions of the lawyer, the doctor, and the clergyman. Still, as the sections of the country taken may be considered as fairly representative of the whole, the figures will probably be found not far amiss.
Some persons will be surprised to learn the average lawyer and physician receive respectively only $1,210 and $1,053, but they should bear in mind that while the pay in these professions is sometimes as high as $25,000 and even $50,000 a year, a great number of beginners and unsuccessful men are toiling—or not toiling—for a mere pittance. Were it not for the ten per cent. of very successful men in these professions who are making fortunes, the average receipts would be even smaller by two or three hundred dollars than they appear in the table.
Other cases where the figures may not have as much value as could be desired are under the headings which really comprise a group of occupations instead of a single one, as that of the journalist and the electrician;yet others where the general name is that of a genus comprising many species, as that of the engineer; and still others where there is a great difference in the value of the work performed, as in the case of teachers and factory operatives. Again, in business ventures, such as those of storekeepers, bankers, brokers, and others, many have actually lost money, and this reduces immensely the average, while among the so-called working classes, days of idleness, willing or enforced, operate in the same way.
Yet, on the whole, if any one consults the table as a general guide to the pecuniary rewards of the various trades and professions, he will find that they have been placed in their relative financial standing. In the occupations named, employees are generally meant, employers and independent workers being printed in capitals.
THE END.
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May be ordered through any bookseller or will be mailed free for the published price....