The herald., 1896-07-11
MARKETS OF THE WORLD
Local, Eastern and Foreign
Commercial Dealings
WALL STREET SPECULATION
Checks In the South After th
War
ness-A r1emphls Merchant Tells
How 1t Is Don,

Mr.. Washington Duke the head of the
widely known Duke family, in relating
for southern newspaper some of his ex-
perience in the tobacco trade, thus lets in
some light upon the primitive financial
ideas common in early days:
Just after the war, the people, even of
good means, knew very little about COM
mercial transactions. This was illustrated
by an incident that occurred while l was
manufacturing tobacco in the country.
A farmer in Person county, Va, sent over
big lot to sell. 1 made a trade for it and
gave Mr.. x, who bought it, check
on the Raleigh National bank in payment.
He has told me since that he didn' know
anything about checks, or whether he
ought 10 take 1t or not, but as he didn
know where he could sell the tobacco If
! didn't take II, he conculded TO say moth
ing. but to put it in his pocket and carry
II 10 the farmer to whom the tobacco be-
longed. When he got baiA to Person
tobacco?' He replied that he had sold II
to Mr.. Duke, and told him the price paid
for It, Where is the money! then was
by me on the Raleigh National bank, was
produced, ana the farmer said: This piece
OF paper is worth nothing at ALL Some
weeks later the man from whom l had
bought the tobacco had occasion TO go to
Fayetteville, and decided to go by Raleigh
to see If that piece of paper was worth
anything" He told me about it afterwafd,
saying that he went into the bank in Ra,
leigh with great uneasiness and presented
the piece of paper. The cashier looked at
the bills. Il never felt SO happy in my
life, said the man, as when got those
bills in my hands. "-Tobacco
The Lawyer and Credit Men gives the fol-
lowing from Memphis grocer:
"A few days age, man from Arkansas
who had recently bought out his partners
amounting to $4,000. After putting him
through a stringent catechism as to his
assets and liabilities l verified the state
ments made us by those made to the regu-
lar commercial agencies and notified him
that while was entirely satisfied as far as
concerned his moral character and bust
ness antecedentS, there was one fatal mis-
take he had made. In unfeigned astonish-
ment he asked me what that was, and I
told him that he had bought out too manv
of his partners; or, in other words, we had
only his life between us and the admins
tration of his estate. in which event our
chances of collection would be but meagre.
/ then proposed to him that in order to
protect ourselves against just such an
emergency We must ask that he have his
life insured in our favor, that is, the policy
to be drawn in favor of Stewart, Groynne
& Co., as their interest in his estate might
appear at the time of his death. The idea
struck him favorably, and he at once con-
sented to the plan.
TT is an invarlable rule with us never to
grant a large line of credit wherein the re
SponSibiity and success of the BUSINESS
rests upon the shoulders of one individual
unless that individuals life is insured in
our favor for sufficient amount beyond
the credit granted to enable us to keep up
the payments on the policy without inter-
fering with the original investment.
within the past three months | COL
lected on one policy of this kind $4,000, and
I have now in the safe $4,000 policy upon
the life of man who failed owing us in
the aggregate of s7000 not a cent of which
was collectible from his assets; this policy
however. leaves us a margin of $4,000 with
which to keep the premiums paid up for
twenty-five years.
"There are in our safe thousands of just
such policies and we consider them the
safest kind of security"