The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1875-11-05
Tas Law of Accumulation.

money but it Is not every body that pays
attention to the mode by which this is
brought about, and the practical conse-
qnences- which follow. School boys are
taught the rule of compound interest;
hnt nine out of ten of them forget all
about it for the remainder of their lives.
Yet this principle has more to do with
the accumulation of large fortunes than
any other cause whatever; and it has
bearings on the increase of wealth, and
on the ratio and style of expenditure.
both personal and national. of which
the practical character cannot be over
rated.
We read in paper. few months
ago, of the death of an eminect capital
i-t, who left the enormous fortune of
three millions sterling. This old gen
tleman was over ninety years of age at
the time of his death, and it is pretty
evident that he was man of quiet hab-
its and moderate expenditure. letting his
capital accumulate from year to year by
its own natural force. Now, it is only
when it has been in operation for long
series of consecutive years that we see
what the force of compound interest is.
For the first few years the augmentation
is almost imperceptible; but when once
the power of increase has been develop
ed, it goes on at an angmenting ratio,
until the results are almost incredible.
There can be no doubt that in the case
jnst mentioned the wealth accumulated
after the natural duration of life had
heen reached was far more than all the
seventy years previous
If money can he invested at eight per
cent, and the interest reinve~ted at the
same rate, it will double itself in five
wears. Allow ten wears for this Ia take
place, owing to loss of time for reinvest-
ing, and we reach the remarkable con
ion-remarkable, we mean, to those
who have not thought about it-that if
4 man can lay by thousand pounds at
nne-and twenty, and let it accumulate at
compound interest, it will amount to the
enormous sum ofthirty thousand pounds
If he lives to the age of seventy, TO six
ty thousand at ninety. This is the secret
of the large fortunes of the great bank
ers and capitalists, whose money goes on
accumulating from generation to gener-
| alton, and augments with Drodigious
rapidity after thirty or forty years have
passed on.
The process, however, may be revers-
ed. A mau who wastes or spends
thousand pounds needlessly by the time
he is one or two and d-twenty-what is
the effect? If he lives till he is seventy,
he will be thirty thousand pounds poor
er for it; or we will say he will have
lost the chance of being thirty thousand
pounds better off than he is.
We then arrive at the general truth,
that the younger the man is the more
valuable money is to him. We have
seen what thousand pounds is to a
man of twenty -one-namely, the making
of fortune; but thousand pounds to
a man of fifty would be of comparative
ly small account.
Suppose a man begins life with econ
omical habits, and by rigid self-denial
accumulates two thousand pounds by
the time he is twenty five. That sum
will amount to competency by the
time he desires to be free from the cares
of business, and he can then, and indeed
for years before, have the pleasure of
laying out his money freely and without
fear, in gratifying his tastes or in doing
good.
But if he be inclined to CRAFTY his
tastes when yonng, to buy, we will say,
expensive furniture, or to mingle too
freely In society so that he never saves
at all until he is ive-and forty, what
good will two thousand pounds do him
then? 1t is, of course, good in itself
but as the foundation of a great fortune,
it is utterly inadequate. 1t would only
amount to eight thousand pounds at six
y-five, and not to a fortune till long af-
ter three score and ten.
The points of the whole matter are
therefore this: Every pound saved in
youth is thirty pounds in old age; every
hundred pounds spent in foolery or fin
cry before 6ve-and-twenty is simply
three thousand pounds thrown away of
provision for the time when work must
be burden.
Let our young men in business think
of this. They are exposed, on entering
life, to innumerable temptations TO
spend. Let such he steadily resisted.
The course in youth is Quick saving and
careful economy. By and by time will
come when this will bear it's Legitimate
frnits. Then is the time for opehhand-
ed freedom in expenditure, when the
Judgment is matured, when knowledge
l of the world is acquired, and when cap
ital has been accumulated to such an
' extent that even if there rbe no more
: saving there need he no further anxiety
1t should not be forgotten that the
t majority of the merchant-princes who
D have reached the highest honors tc
! which an English citizen can aspire
b have been, in their earlier days, pooi
f but thrifty men. They never squander
J ed money, nor wasted their substance ir
] neckless riot and feasting, for they un
a derstood thoroughly the great law of ac
;, cumulation.
1t is not the amount ofland that makes
| tho farmar rich hut tho amount we
improved. A few acres titled to its ut
e most extent of production will vielc
: much more of profit than the large faru
: badly managed and titled. A new come
e will put his last dollar in land, and g
J. in debt for his house and farming tools