The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1871-02-11
4 Lesson for Farmer Boys.

OuIdlHIHS d competency OF Ten, O1
twenty, or fifty thousand dollars, is
the securing of one thousand; the
chief difficulty in getting the one
thousand is in obtaining the first
one hundred and keeping it. Hack.
neyed as this may appear, it is fact
that is ever new, and one that needs
to be drummed into the ears of the
struggling millions who work hard
and look with straining vision, but
in vain, for the coming of plentiful
days. And especially does this
homely philosophy of wealth need
to be emphasized at the present
time, and impressed upon the young
men of this generation, since the
prevalent tendency, now more than
ever before, is for beginners in mar
ried or in business life to adopt such
a scale of personal family expendi-
ture as must render thrift impossi-
BILE. The youth Of our time seem
likely to forget that easy circum-
stances in the middle OF mature age
are, as a rule, only to be purchased
at the cost of rigid self-denial in
earlier years. The son and daugh-
ter are ambitious to begin life where
their parents left off-in other words
they wish to reap where they have
not sown, OF before they have sown,
and the result is, lives of makes shift,
anxiety and failure. Most of those
who are really industrious, and yet
find themselves at the noon of life
with only their daily efforts between
their families and want, could have
been in more comfortable circum-
stances, had they early learned the
lesson that the key to a competency
lies in the practice of a rigid econo-
my at the outset of life.
He who does not begin to save
when he commences life for himself
will rarely begin at all, for where
not even the nucleus Of a modest
fortune has been early acquired fam
lily expenses will, after a time, grow
as fast as the income, and the two
keep abreast ever afterward.
Some of the ways in which even
a very small sum, actually saved
and put aside in early life, serves as
a stepping stone to future compe
tence, are these:
The saving gives the young man
the reputation among his neighbors
and business associates of being
careful, frugal, and prosperous. It
gives him what it called good
business credit, it is accepted as an
index of his business character, and
instead of his being forced to seek
employment, opportunities seek
him. Besides, his little ready capi-
tai enables him to take advantage of
business openings which, if wholly
empty-handed, he could not aspire
to. 1t enables him soon to become
his own employer-a most impor-
tant consideration. Money begets
money. Capital has a natural ten
dency to increase itself, and a very
little capital in the hands of a .ju-
dicious person, and combined with
the labor of strong and skillful
hands, is a vast help. The day
laborer or the mechanic who has a
few hundred dollars in the bank, or
invested in a good interest-bearing
security, is a capitalist as well as a
working-man, and is prepared to
reap the advantages Of his double
capacity.
But mainly, the saving and keep
ing of the first hundred or the first
thousand dollars is the key to fu-
ture success, from the fact that it.
builds up, business character; it
compells the formation of habits of
economy, and fixes them for life; it
puts the young worker on the right
road accustoms him to keeping out
of debt, drills him in the homely
science of keeping his financial mat
ters snug, and builds UP granite
determination to force expenses be-
low income,-IN. Z. Homestead.
MAKE NO MAN FEEL. HIS INFE-