The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-04-21
TIE CHANCE OF SUCCESS.
What the Odds Are Against Earning
"a Good Living.


Assuming that you work for your
living, and taking all trades and pro-
fessions together, the odds against your
earning e 1000 year are 1924 to l.
according to a statistician who has
published in Answers the result of a
recent investigation. That income is
the standard of ordinary success. But
special success is generally fixed at
an income of 100000, and If you hope
to strike OUT to that extent you will
have to- conquer odds of s1750,000 to 1.
There are about 14,000,900 people In
Great Britain who earn money, and of
these-10,99S make 6 1,000Fa year. There
are only sixteen, by the latest returns,
who make more than 6 $4,000 out Of
their own business and professions.
If You are a businessmen a bank
clerk, you are one among about 100000
an enormous class. OF these, sixty
are promoted to partnerships, or posi-
tons Of trust worth 6 1000 a year, or
succeed to that extent, by some means
or other, every year, taking ten years
average. You have in this business a
5000 to l chance.
Among these successes! about half a
clerk per annum Cor five'm ten years)
reaches a position worth $4,000 a
year to him. This is pretty good, con-
sidering that salaries in this business
run between S25 and C 800 a year
the average being $50 per annum.
Bank clerks, of whom there are $4,000,
have longer odds against them, and
have only one chance in 700 apiece of
getting even C 900 a year.
Counting the officials, their ordinary
incomes average G. los per week, but
only about three bank clerks in each
year, among all the banks in the king
dom,are raised to partnerships or man
agerSh1ps worth more than e 1000 a.
year. Railway clerks, a much bigger
body, numbering $4,000, have still big
ger odds against them-about 5000 to
land on an average five railway
clerks Cor former railway clerks) drop
into incomes of e 900 and over. On
the other hand, they have fair chance,
LOCO to l or whereabouts, of eventually
getting the recognized comfortable in,
come, $500 year, and that is COM
paratively short odds in. the battle Of
life.
Should you be a grocer, you have a
4,OOO to chance of success over the
41,000 a year, for there are nearly
100000 more Of you struggling for the
same goal, and the race is a keen one.
There is pretty steady average of 90
successes per year in the grocery trade
among that 100000, though for the
same time there are about 100 failures,
Tor this ts trade that hits the small
man very nara, ana IL comes second
on the list of dangerous trades-dan-
gerous to the pocket OF these wins
from seven to ten amount to over
a bOOO a year each; but Sir Thomas
Upton is the only one who has passed
the $4,000 a year limit of late years
one does not count the cooperative
companies, of course. The average,
taking the big town grocer and the lit
tie village. grocer, and leaving out the
great combines" comes to E200 per.
annum for each man that runs a gro
GERS business.
Ambitious people should leave the
butchers trade alone, for, though it
gives one Of the best chances for a.
comfortable income-up to G 500 a year
the real successes are few and every.
small butcher has 10000 to l against
him II he hopes to reach or pass the
1000 per annum.-Tid-Bits