Stock Prices Stage Upturn

1929

New Year Advance; Many Issues at New Highs

NEW YORK, Jan. 2. — Stock prices were up, a bull-market, as the New Year began, with many issues up $5 to $21.50 a share.

Nearly 40 stocks, including General Electric, Bethlehem Steel, Anaconda Copper, Allied Chemical, Standard Oil of New York and Pennsylvania Railroad, were at their highest prices in years, perhaps ever.

The ticker fell behind nearly a half hour, so great was the volume of trading, and it was necessary to eliminate small sales volume from the tape.

Radio was up $20.50 a share to $395, International Nickel Certificates hit an all-time high at $275, up $21.50, General Electric and Union Carbide were up $10 each, and trading higher by $5 to $8 a share were National Biscuit, American Express, Adams Express, American International, Victor Talking Machine, Warren Bros., Purity Baking, Dupont, Liggett & Myers, Rossia Insurance, and Midland Steel Products.

—Jan. 2, 1929, written by Clippique from information in original article.

Trying to Make Forty Dollars

1901

Here is a hard luck story apropos of efforts to make a little sum in Wall street: A young man started with $100 and ran it up to $9,960, or $40 less than an even $10,000. The desire to round out the $10,000 goaded him on. He said to his broker, "If I can make that additional $40 on a quick turn I will draw out my $10,000 and invest it in real estate."

It was a strong bull market, but things appeared sky high, and he picked out an active stock to sell short. I think he landed on T. C. and I., which had a phenomenal rise and was due to drop anywhere from 10 to 50 points. He sold 100 shares at par, intending to close it out at 99. But instead of going down the blamed thing soared to 126. At every three points' gain he sold another 100 until he was carrying all he could tote. In 24 hours he lost nearly every cent it had taken him three months to make.

With what little he had left he bought T. I. on the recession to 116, friends of the Hanover National bank assuring him that it was going to 150. Then came the fireworks and the funeral. The bottom fell out of the specialty and young Dr. Knowall found himself $15,000 in debt. He hasn't been in Wall street since. — New York Press.

Telephone in the Woods

1905

"I've been reading," remarked a citizen who spends five months of every year in the woods, "that the telephone is a great convenience in the wilderness. The Electrical Review says that throughout the forests, from St. John to Vancouver, the telephone brings the lumber camps into touch with one another, letters are read to lumbermen snowed in 50 or 300 miles from civilization and the human side of life is made warmer and more vivid by this means of communication.

"A telephone does heat up considerably anywhere, especially when it won't work; but I'm inclined to think a telephone in the wilderness is a great nuisance instead of a great convenience. What an angler, hunter or botanist wants of one of the things is more than I can understand. They've got the Adirondacks fixed so that there's a push button in every other tree, and if you stub your toe a waiter'll pop out of the bushes with a champagne cocktail or a telegram. That's all right, perhaps, but why not stay in the Waldorf?

"A telephone in the woods is a good thing for game, though. We had our cabin wired to a village down at the end of the railroad one summer. Never again for me. I'd be dangling for trout. 'John, John,' would come my wife's voice, resounding through the aisles of pine and hemlock. 'What?' I'd say, mad clean through. 'Your Boston brokers want to talk with you a minute.' Or I'd be almost within range of a deer and that same 'John' would come floating on the air from the shanty. 'What?' I'd have to call back, and the deer'd be in the next county. 'New York's waiting; long distance,' the servant would holler. "Line's held open for you.' The only trout I got that season was a tame one I bought of a man who fattens 'em for market, and the only thing I shot was the ace of spades. I tacked it up the last day and blazed at it for spite. And now," he concluded, "when I go into the woods the central office can't find me with a guide and a brass band." — Providence Journal.

Advances In Science of Farming

1899

The wonderful advance made in the science of farming during the last few years is one of the best examples of American progressiveness. A little incident recounted by the Ashtabula (Ohio) Sentinel is characteristic.

One evening, a short time ago, a society in Jefferson needed a gallon of cream. The committee called up by telephone the proprietors of a milk farm two miles north of the town, and asked if they could furnish it. The reply was that they could as soon as milking was done. In thirty minutes from the time the call was made the cream was delivered.

The milk had been drawn from the cow, put into a separator, the cream extracted and sent to town by a man on a bicycle.

A few years ago the committee would have had to send a boy in the afternoon, "yesterday's milk" would have had to be skimmed, and if the boy had not treed too many chipmunks on the way, he might have got back in time for the festival.


When It Paid

It was at the village sewing circle, and the unprofitable question of the failure or success of marriage was under discussion. Beulah Blank, a war widow, thrifty to the last degree of New England thriftiness, kept silent until some one said:
"What do you think about it, Beulah?"
"Well, I must say that it depends," said Beulah. "Now when a woman gits married, an' her husband gits drafted into the army, and he gits killed, and she gits a pension of twelve dollars a month as long as she lives, it pays to git married. That's what I think."


Safe Stock

When news came to Boxby that the squire's son "down below" had made a large sum of money in stocks, some of the wiseacres shook their heads.
Not so old lady Sprowlet with whom the young man had always been a prime favorite.
"I don't see what the minister meant, saying he didn't favor Bob's having dealings in the stock market," she said, indignantly, to one of her neighbors. "I can't see why money made in trading cattle, if it's done fair and square, isn't just as good as money made any other way!"

Slump in Manicuring Business

1908

Manicuring girls find that their business, like most others, is suffering as a result of the slump in the stock market. But they are still doing fairly well, thanks to bridge whist.

"As long as folks can afford to play bridge we'll have good business," explained one of the nail polishers. "Women who play the game have to be careful about the looks of their hands, they are so conspicuous when dealing and shuffling. In fact, the bridge craze saved the lives of most manicures. Highly polished nails had gone out of style, and the business was going to the dogs when the bridge craze saved the day." — New York Sun.

The Tear Cure

A good cry is a solace to many women. It steadies the nerves, and, added to a cup of tea and an interesting story, forms their idea of supreme happiness. Arising from the perusal of their books with red eyes, swelled features and a sopping pocket handkerchief, they feel their time has not been wasted. — Lady Violet Greville in London Chronicle.

Love

We are dazzled and charmed by those who love deepest, but we are comforted and strengthened by those who love longest.