The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-04-07
THE LAW OF ACCUMULATION.


money at interest-whieh is seldom or
never sufficiently learned-in the fol-
lowing practical form:
Everybody knows that money makes
money; but it is not everybody that
pays attention to the mode by which
this is brought about, and the practical
consequences which follow Schoolboys
are taught the rule of compound inter
est; but 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 expendi-
ture, both personal and national, of
which the practical character cannot be
overrated-
We read in a paper, a few months ago,
OF the death of an eminent capitalist,
who left the enormous fortune of three
millions sterling. This old gentleman
was over ninety years of age at the time
of his death, and it is pretty evident that
he was a man of quiet habits and mod
crate 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 a long series Of
consecutive years that We see what the
force of compound interest is. For the
first fewyears the augmentation is almost
imperceptible; but when once the power
of increase has been developed, it goes
on at an augmenting ratio, until the re-
suits are almost incredible. There can
be no doubt that in the case just men,
toned the wealth accumulated after the
natural duration of life had been reached
was far more than all the seventy years
previous.
If money can be invested at eight per
cent, and the interest reinvested at the
same rate, it will double itself in five
years. Allow ten years for this to take
place, owing to loss of time for reinvest-
ing, and we reach the remarkable con-
c.dslon@remarkable we mean, to those
who have not thought about it-thas if
a man can lay by a thousand pounds at
one-and-twenty, and let it accumulate
at compound interest, it will amount to
the enormous sum of thirty thousand
pounds, if he live to the age of seventy,
to sixty thousand at eighty, and to a
hundred thousand at ninety. This is
the secret of the large fortunes of the
great bankers and capitalists, whose
money goes on accumulating from gen.
Grafton to generation, and augments
with prodigious rapidity after thirty or
forty years have passed on.
The process, however, may be re-
versed. A man who wastes or spends
thousand pounds needlessly by the time
he is one or twO-and dtwenty-what is
the effectl If he lives till he is seventy,
he will be thirty thousand pounds poorer
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 a thousand pounds is to a man of
twenty one-namely, tile making of
fortune; but thousand pounds to a
man of fifty would be of comparatively
small account.
Suppose a man begins life with eco
nomieal habits, and by rigid self-denial
accumulates TWO thousand pounds by
the time he is twenty five. The sum
will amount to a competency by the
time he desires to be free from tie 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 ii he be inclined to crafty his
tastes when young, to buy, we will say,
expensive furniture, or to mingle too
freely in society, so that he never saves
at all until he is five and forty, what
good will two thousand pounds do him
thenl 1t is, of course, good in itself,
but as the foundation of great fortune
is utterly inadequate. 1t would only
amount to eight thousand pounds at
sixty-fve, and not to fortune till long
after 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 five 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 be steadily resisted
The course in youth is quick saving and
careful economy. BY and by the time
will come when this will bear its legiti-
mat fruits. Then is the time for open.
handed freedom in expenditure, when
the judgement is matured, when knowI-
edge of the world is acquired, and when
capital has been accumulated to such an
extent that even if there be no more
saving there need be no further anxiety.
1t should not be forgotten that the
majority OF the merchant-princes who
have reached the highest honors to
which an English citizen can aspire have
been, in their earlier days, poor but
thrifty men. They never squandered
money, nor wasted their substance in
reckless riot and feasting. for they un-
derstood thoroughly the great law of
accommodating.
SEPARATED AT THE GRAvR.-We re-
Gently printed, says an exchange, an
account of the final separation of two
young people at the grave of their child.
A stranger and sadder case occurred in
Illinois few days ago. Ahusband and
wife had lived together for over thirty
wears and had raised to manhood and