Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-04-30
Getting Rich Fast.

course there are mining companies
which have a bona fide property-have
an actual substance, and whose opera
tions are managed with reasonable
degree of honesty and responsibility
These, however, are so exceptional that
they may be easily counted. The stock
of these companies is so well fortified
by actual property that it is rarely on
the market, and never hawked about at
a discount. The multitudes of these
companies are, however, no more than
legalized swindles, into which the un-
wary are trapped and robbed.
One of the ordinary weaknesses of
human nature was wildly developed by
the late war. That weakness was TO
desire to get rich without labor, sudden
ly and to an extravagant extent. A
voluminous and depreciated paper cur
rency familiarized the public mind with
large figures; the sudden and large
fortunes gained by contractors during
the war, the initiation of all nominal
values, the excessive display of sud-
denly acquired wealth, the growth
of luxurious tastes and habits,
the change from days of toll and
anxiety to lavish expenditure and vul-
| gar ease-all had corrupting influence
upon the public mind, and an influence
whose evil results will long survive the
! generation which first experienced It.
The natural taste for speculation was
whetted by the examples of vast riches
gained by brief ventures, and the envy
felt towards the successful was i'm no.
wise mitigated by the strong suspicion
that questionable means had been en-
ployed in many eases. The frequent
trips TO Europe by whole families who
had previously lived in humble circum-
stances, and the bringing back Of the
external evidences of fashionable lux
ury, gave to wealth an example in social
life which formed q widespread desire
10 get rich rapidly. The slow processes
of labor and moderate accumulations
became distasteful, and the search for
short cuts TO fortune led thousands of
previously-contented people to abandon
labor as vulgar, even il honest, to find
quicker returns, even if the means were
less creditable. Every body became a
speculator. Every body wanted to live
in better house, to wear better clothes,
and to have more money to spend than
he or she had before.
During the latter part of Andrew
Johnson's Administration the tax on
whisky was 81 per gallon. The money
TO be made by selling whisky without
paying the tax was enormous. Seventy
millions of gallons of whisky were made
every year, and every gallon on which
no tax was spaid yielded 81 profit to
somebody. No wonder that the num-
Der of gallons on which the tax was paid
fell to 13,000,000 a year, and the profit,
dishonest as it was, found willing hands
TO share it, Every body speculated-
men women, and children; boys and
girls left the farms and villages to 90
into cities, where money was plenty,
where they could get money and have
good clothes, wear kid gloves, have
feathers in their hats, see life, and run
the chances of making a good strike,
on the road TO ruin. Work was vulgar;
money was plenty; it was easy to buy
on credit, and sell at credit with large
profit. 1t is true thatin 1873 there came
a sudden end to this mania. Credit col
lapsed; in a single day fortunes per-
ished the rich became poor silks were
exchanged for rags, and the spendthrifts
were reduced to the alternative of go
ing back to labor or going to the bad,
and the criminal records Of the day
show how large proportion took the
latter course.
For several years there was a strHg-
gle for existence. Under the sepulchral
monument of the Bankrupt law are
buried thousands who had hopelessly
tried to recover. The past was too
great a load TO carry. Out of this grave
yard of speculation came at last the
boom of better times. Men were again
at work. The industrious population in
field, and workshop, and counting
room, found employment and remunera-
ton better than these had ever been be-
fore. Times got better, wages were
larger and more regular, expenditure
increased, and the smothered but not
extinguisl u fire of speculation broke
forth aneNt This time 1t has taken the
form of digging gold, of finding gold, of
gathering in a few weeks gold enough
To OvershadOw the earnings of q life
time of labor. Young men by the
thousands have abandoned labor, tax
ing the hundreds and thousands of dol
lars saved by them, and gone off to the
mountains to get rich by finding gold.
They expect to find il in the running
streams, in the solid rocks, under the
roots of trees, in the plains, and in over
hanging banks; they expect to strike
the earth and TO hear a metallic re-
sponse. 1t is of no use to tell these peo-
pie that each ounce of gold ever found
has cost far more than It's value in hui
man toll and human life TO uncover it;
the desire TO get rich suddenly and with
mt lnhnrs alive all III,
considerations.
This mania is fed by wonderful sto-
ries of fortunes made in few weeks,
days and hours by mining stocks.
There are thousands of discontented
people who can not go to the mines
can not go the hills TO dig. They de-
your every thing published concerning
these so-called mines. They read and
believe all the stories of the wonderful
wealth TO be thus gained. They read
of stocks selling ut 80 cents on the S100
yesterday, and of their sale to-day at
$50; they read of mines selling at $500
and being stocked at Sl,000,000, and
the stock being in demand. There are
thousands Of these so-called mines cap
ltalized at sums ranging from
81 100000 TO $50, ,000,000; OF mines
whose stock for S1,O0O,OOO has been
sold at 25 cents on the dollar becoming
Of such value that the capital was in
creased to S10,0O0,0OO and, divided
among the original stockholders, and
then selling at 800 per share. 1t is
not surprising that these self-evident
fables find oredulous persons in all
walks Of life investing their ten, fifteen
and hundreds of dollars of savings in
the stocks of these scandalous and in
famous swindles and frauds. It is in