Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-10-05
HIS START IN LIFE.
s'oOc" HARTMAN AND HIS WONDER
Full GREASE ERADICAToR.

4
and Laid the Foundations of a
Substantial Fortune.
Talk about your self made men,
| said an old timer among a party of
horsemen gathered in one of the speed
| way inns, Il don't think any of 'em
can equal the early experiences of Tim
| Hartman, who died in St. Louis many
years ago, leaving nearly a million dol
| lars to be fought over by his heirs. He
made his first good sized pile on pat
ent medicines, then he picked up a
| great deal more on real estate, and ut
last he rounded out with speculation in
| Montana copper, but he was known as
| Doc Hartman to the time of his death
/ by his few intimate friends.
| "But the story that I'm going to tell,
and the one which he often told him
self, concerns his very earliest expert
ences in the accumulation of money.
| Tim Hartman started life with 81. He
| kicked around as n barefooted boy
| and n pretty mean one, too-in a little
| town in Connecticut until he was Is
| years old, and at that time he had be-
| come so fresh and so full of wind and
| general cussedness that his father one
/
| had been and never would amount to
| a picayune. The old gentleman, just
! to carry out the bluff, told Tim that he
had good mind to cut him off with 4
| dOltaE and make him earn his own Iiy-
| ina Gin Strengthened up and called
| tbs Nlrf. He told the old man that he
| world take the dollar and get out then
| and there and hustle for himself The
old man handed him a crisp 81 bill and
| told him that he'd be glad to see him
make n fortune with it.
THE first thing that cuss did was to
| go about in few back yards that he
| knew of and gather together n lot of
| empty bottles which were of no use to
! anybody. Then, for 10 cents, he bought
n large cake of n kind of white soap
| that was then. and still is, on the mar
| ket. He melted this soap and, after
| borrowing an ancient pair of candle
| molds from an old granny in the neigh
| borhood, made two beautiful looking
| candles of soap. He next filed his bot
| ties full of choice rainwater. Then he
made for himself one of those little
three legged tables like the chuck-a-
| luck and shell game Gen use outside
| the circus, and struck out on foot for a
| county fair that was being held about
40 miles away.
when he got there, he put up his lit
! tie table outside the grounds, where
the crowd was pretty thick, lighted one
of his soap candles and began to extol
the virtues of DIR. Hartman's Famous
| Grease Eradicator.' contained in the
bottles set before him.
NOW, ladies and gentlemen he
would shout in a stentorian but plausi-
bic voice. this marvellous liquid, so
harmless that it can be drunk with i'm
punity by the smallest infant and yet
so penetrating that it will seek out and
destroy stains and diScolorations from
! the most refractory substance, was dis
covered by accident by the famous sci
enlist. DR.. Hartman, the eminent schol-
ar, while he was wandering DER the
wilds of Patagonia. 1t is colorleSS, you
see, as the waters from heaven, and
yet observe the effects of its startling
properties!
"At this point Tim would reach for
his soap candle and. inverting it. would
smear a lot of the grease over the
sleeve of his coat.
Now. every one of you knows. Ia
dies and gentlemen he would continue,
reaching over and uncorking a bottle
of his rainwater, that there is nothing
so penetrating and ineffaceable as the
grease from a candle, and yet it is
stain that we are all likely to suffer al
most every evening of our lives while
toying with that common article of the
household. the candle. You will OBJ
serve that my sleeve is smeared with
tho pohOIdf-
Here that country bred fakir would
spill couple of drops of his rainwater
on the soap and with n rub or two
would produce a beautiful lather. An
other swipe and the soap would have
leaving not a trace,
Nov, we make this famous eradi-
Gator in such enormous quantities. Tim
would continue, that in order to intro
duce it into every home in this broad
land we will dispense with it at the
absurdly low price of 3 cents, nickel
n bottle. Step right upl Step right
upr
''Then, when the public was surging
forward to purchase the rainwater,
Tim would pause occasionally to drink
a bottle Of it, just TO show that it was
absolutely harmless.
''Well, the stuff went like hot cakes.
When Tins bottles were all exhausted,
he bought more, and when the fair was
over he went to another and another
until he had travelled all over the coun-
try. Then, in some way or other,
don't know how, he got hold Of some
old patent medicine, and, being a gen.
ius, of course he made a big go of it
So that's the way Tim Hartman almost
became a millionaire" = New York
Times.
Evart. and the Author.