The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-12-08
HABITS OF THRIFT.
Western Merchants Way of Helping
His EMPLOYEES to Law I'm Money

Western Merchants Way of Helping
His Employees to Lay UP Money.
Il always have confidence In people
who save a little money out of their
salaries" said a prominent western
merchant to a Chicago Inter-Ocean re-
porter, land / do what I can to encour-
age habits of thrift. l employ about
seventy-six clerks in my establishment,
to whom ] pay weekly salaries ranging
| from ten dollars to forty dollars. Nat
urally enough, more of them get the
former than the latter amount, but they
are none the less worthy on that ac-
count
In the beginning, when I employed
only two people, | lived pretty close to
them, and | knew how thriftless they
could be when they were not encour-
I aged to do otherwise. / have dis
! charged more clerks for that sort of
! thing than for any other cause. They
spent their salaries, large or small, as
might be, in reckless fashion, and let
debt accumulate quite regardless of the
rights of creditors. AS my business in
creased, and with 1t my profits and my
force Of people, began to give the mat
ter more study, and in the end, when
felt able to be of material assistance lin
encouraging thrift and honesty, / pro-
posed a yearly recognition to those who
would save something out Of their sal
aries 1t was small at first, but was so
successful that to-day / haven't clerk
who has not some kind of bank ac-
count, and not one who wilfully refuses
to pay his debts When we get new
one who refuses to take advantage Of
the opportunity afforded we let him go
at the end of the first year.
MY present plan is to double the
savings of all clerks who receive ten,
twelve and fifteen dollars week; to
add rs per cent. to all who receive from
fifteen to twenty-five dollars, and 10 for
those over twenty-five dollars. A clerk
on fifteen dollars a week pr under cam
not save much, but, as rule, that class
of clerks have no one to maintain but
themselves, and il one cannot save
more than twenty-five dollars out of
his years labor it is rather pleasant for
him to get twenty-five dollars clear
profit. Those who receive the larger
usually have families and
their savings are not large, but, what
ever they are, they are comfortably in
creased. One of my twelve hundred
dollar a year clerks with a wife and
two small children, saved four hundred
dollars last year, and my check for one
hundred dollars additional was deposit
ted to his account the day after New
Years. A young woman in charge of a
department at nine hundred dollars a
year has almost paid for nice little
cottage in the suburbs out of her extra,
and so the list runs through every |
branch of the business I make 1t a
condition that all current obligations I
must be met at the end of the year, so |
that the savings are actual met profit. |
Every year some of the clerks are not |
entitled to any extra; but, If this is the
result of sickness, | assume part or
Ill of the doctors bills. You may say
t costs something for me to do it, and |
am under no obligation to do it, and
you are right. But / have the best
lass of clerks in the city, and, as a re-
;ult, [ have the best class of cutom In