The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1874-11-19
with the reputation of good banker, than to
be ever so rich without that reputation"
TIE MAGNIrUDE OF RICHES.

1 THE MAGNITUDE OF RICHES.
"only single million" You cannot i'm
/ agine how small that million seemed when b
\ uttered those wordS-a kind of honorable pov
i erty-a Diogenes tub with a man inside OF il
| You thought of his children boasting that thei
| parents were poor but honest. can well be
lieve the familiar story of John Jacob Astor'
| saying that a "man who is worth S250,000 is jus
| as well off as though he were rich" The mln
| easily becomes habituated to these new magnl
| tudeS. Thomas BraSSey, the English RAILROAD
| contractor lad at one time SO,000 men in hi
| employ, whose wages came to about $4,000
| week, and they were at work in eight countrle
CCEnsiahd, france, SPAN, IIaly, Henezueia ta @
| day ordering 10000 wheelbarroWs and 5000 wag
| ons. In the course of 40 years he constructed
| or helped construct, $50 railroads. and he die
| all this with less fuss and worry than many
man experiences in running peanut stand
| We have greater than Thomas BTassey. in Cor
| nelius Vanderbilt, who, at eighty, quietly
| makes up his mind that the time has come fo
York and Buffalo. Some said to him, 81
DON'T DON'T know OF any four-traek @ roads" '.l -
TWO more tracks, and hope to live to see them
laid" And probably he will. The care OF an
estate Of S40,OOO,OOO and the management OF al
his railroads only occupy him two hours day
and during that short time he does not appear
to be very busy. By three O'Clock he is usually y
on the road, erect, magnificent, driving pain
of fast horses, in an open wagon, unattended
There higher spheres of labor than MAX
ing railroads in which the great resources OF
our Kings of Business are employed with wide
ly beneficial effects of another kind. Many OF
you have seen in Broadway the ornate and
spacious publishing house of the Appletons.
Ascend to the fourth story, and you find an
apartment about so feet square, fitted up with
desks and pigeOn-holeS, and occupied by about
80 or 40 gentlemen, writing studying, proof
reading, most of them advanced in age, and
several venerable, with gray hairs and great
names. This is the working groom for the wri-
terS for AppletonS' Cyclopedia. In this room
the wholemass o: hc'nan knowledgein all sub
jectS and sciences is gathered, and reStated in
such manner as to ma Ike it conveniently ac-
cessibIe to all the American people who can
read And this work we1t on for two years be-
fore the first volume was ready for the printer.
No individual, no college for the learned, could
produce such work. 1t becomes possible only
by the union of large body of learned persons
with the capital enterprise, and skill of men of
business. Similar works are executed by the
Harpers and others, and do not doubt that the
system is destined to still more remarkable tri-
umphs in the future.
And now the question occurs, Who are these
uncrowned monarchs of the modern world?
What are they? Where do they originate? By
sources? In what respect do they differ from
the men who attempt a similar career and fall
out of the course disabled and defeated? Is it
their virtue or their want of virtue that gives
them success? These are interesting questions,
ern world They carry the purse and pay
everybody, and it is apparently a law of nature
that the hand which signs the check wields the
power.
As a rule, these Kings of Business begin life
near the bottom of what is called the social
scale. They generally begin very poor. Crabb
ton applied to the Bishop of LANDAU for advice
how to bring ri up his son SO SC. that ne would @ get
way" replied the Bishop: "Give him parts
a1a S oT M s vn iaid m TIE od f5her ba
given him parts, will manage as to the power
ty." Another English nobleman, Lord Derby,
mentioned a curious circumstance in point the
other day. At gathering in Australia four
people met, three OF whom were shepherds on
at Oxford, another at cambridge, and third at
a German university. The fourth was their
but scarcely able to read and write, much less
to keep his own accounts. But venture TO
markets, knew wool. 1t is an unquestionable
fact that both in Australia and America these
FOUNDERS OF npge business are, as a rule unleI-
long grapple with material things
1t is also true that they usually take hold,
very early in life, of some plain work that lies
under their noses and keep to that until it is
sues into something large and magnificent. The
wealthiest and the most powerful house of
business in Europe is that of the RothschildS,
who provide for beligerent kings the snews of
war. The founder OF the house, 100 years ago,
boy in his fathers money-changing Of
flee at Fran ankfort-on-the-Main, He discovered
that some of the coins in which his father dealt
used to spend the first day of the week-the
Jews idle day-in picking out such coins from
beginning of his career. He took hold, you
will observe, of the work that lay most obvious
ly before him. #
HOW SOME MEN HAVE RECoME RICH.
q
tiers year or two ago to found college in Bos-
ton, began business thus: At Is he came from
Cape Cod to Boston with So or 81 in his posses
sion and looked out for something to do, rising
early, walking far, observing closely, rejecting
much. Soon he had an idea: He bought three
bushels of oysters, hired wheelbarrow, found
a piece of board, bought six small plates, six
iron forks, a three=cent pepper box, and one Or
two other things. He was at the. oyster boat, at
8 in the morning, buying his oysters, wheeled
RI ilaS Safn nT1h ard n mar
ket, and began business. He sold out his oys-
ters as fast he could open tn h=m, at good
after morning, until he had saved $50, with
which he bought hors and wagon, and had
cents left.
"How are you going to board your horse ?"
asked stable keeper, who witnessed this aG-
dacious TRANSACTION,
81 am going to board him at your stable:,'
"But you're a minor" replied the acute Yam
kee "And mind, can't trust you more than
week."
The next morning the lad, who had establish
ed good credit with oystermen, bought 13
bushels of remarkably fine oysters, which he
sold in the course of the day at a profit of SI7.
And right there in the same market he contin-
ued to deal in oysters and fish for 40 years, be
came king of that business, and ended by
founding a college thus affording a new illus
tration of Prof. Agassizs theory that the con-
sumption of fish is serviceable to the brain.
So.Astor, on reaching New York with his
flutes and few shillings goes to work beat
ing furs for 81 a week, and keeps at furs, until
he is able to build Astor Houses and Astor Ii
braries. So Girard finding himself at Phila-
delphia during the revolutionary war, when
the town was held by the British troops, all
ordinary business being paralyzed, falls to work
boft1ine cIaret for the English ocffiers and fol-
lowed up that clew till it made him the chief
merchant of Pennsylvania. William Cham
bers, the founder of the great publishing house
of Edinburgh coming out of his apprentice
ship at 10 with five shillings capital, set up
book stall with 9lO worth of books, all bought
printing 500 copies of Locke on the und derstand-
ing, and Daniel Appleton by publishing a mi
sH@ere a%5e caed nbs IN of erge
Stephenson, brakeman to a steam engine at the
his sweethearI's shoes and demanding a kiss in
payment. But this only a youthful sally.
tfri. But soon he began to Tinker at his steam
engine, and kept on in that way until he in
vented the locomotive, and created, with the
aid of his son, the railway system.
In those lecturing tours, which are far more
instructive to me than can be instructive to
any one else, frequently see immense estab-
Nine times in ten, If am informed their histo-
ry, / am Informed that the founder was poor
man, who began business on next to nothing
In Chicago, a few years ago, mechanic invest
ed his whole capital, and credit, too in the
making of one rough strong farm wagon, the
first ever made west of the lakes. 1t was all
he could do to live while he made it, and if he
had not had the good luck to sell it immediate
ly he would have been in sorry plight. When
1 was there 20 years after, he had factory
which turned out an excellent wagon every
seven minutes. Last winter, in Norwich, a
beautiful town near the center of New York,
went over David MaEuoletG manu1aotory,
where 100 men were employed in making ham,
mers enough hammers, you would suppose, TO
supply the world with hammers. He is one of
the most perfect examples of King of BuSt-
ness have ever met with in my life. If every
King of Business were such as he, we should
have the millennium the year after next. A
plain little man he is, past 90 now, but in the
full enjoyment of life and the full enjoyment
of his work. Upon being introduced to him in
his office, not knowing what else to say, and
not being aware that there was anything to be
said or thought about Misunderstanding, in
fact, always taken hammers for granted-1
said:
"And here you make hammers for mankind,
Mr.. Maydole."