Two Views Regarding a Cent

1895

The Bank President Thought It Worth Hunting For; the Bookkeeper Didn't.

The president of one of Wall street's wealthiest banks finished dictating a private telegram to his stenographer, and taking out some change to pay for the message dropped a penny on the floor.

"Johnson," he said, "just find that cent."

Johnson searched diligently, but the coin refused to be found.

"If you can't find it, never mind. Get that telegram off and send Robert here."

Robert, one of the bank's messengers, came in and was told to find the cent. He got under the desk, and removing the thick for rug made a search after the missing coin without success.

"Well," exclaimed the president testily, "get a light."

A candle was brought, and after a third attempt the penny was discovered and was handed to the president, who dropped it into his pocket without a word. Just then a customer came in.

"Ah, good morning, Mr. Jones," said the president, "will I renew your $50,000 loan at the same rate and time as before?"

"Why, certainly, sir, certainly! The money market, I understand, is easier today?"

The next morning the head bookkeeper of the bank sauntered jauntily down to the correspondence department, took a cent from his pocket, tossed it on the mail clerk's desk and asked for a penny stamp. The coin twirled a merry dance on the desk, then, rolling off, plunged into the waste paper basket and was lost to view.

"Confound it," exclaimed the bookkeeper after poking among the papers a few times, "I can't bother with such a small thing as that!" Producing another penny, he got his stamp and walked off.

It may be added that the president's salary is well up in the thousands, and he is a very wealthy man besides. The bookkeeper has a salary of $2,500. — New York Sun.

Capt. Bunce's Loss

New York, 1895

Thieves Take $100,000 in Two Lots — Unsigned Haytian Notes.

Capt. Henry C. Bunce of Cold Spring Harbor is puzzled over a robbery that took place in his house Sunday night. Some one got away with $50,000 in notes, but not in good and lawful money of these United States. They were unsigned Haytian notes, and worth just what they would bring for waste paper. The captain had $110,000 of them at face value, and a short time ago some one entered his house and relieved him of $60,000 worth of them.

He valued the notes because they represented an experience he had in Hayti in 1876. At that time he was in command of the schooner Ann Dole. His mate was George S. Keen, and the cook Foster Van Ausdall of Cold Spring. He had agreed to carry away from Hayti President Domingue and Rameau, the Prime Minister, and bring them to the United States. The two officials were to sign the notes that had been given to the captain for their passage after they got aboard of the schooner. Before the two runaways could get on board they were shot down by the mob.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 15, 1895, p. 8.

Incomes In Country and Town

1895

Five thousand dollars in a country town is affluence if the beneficiary is content to stay there, but in a city the family man with only that income, provided he is ambitious, can only just live and might fairly be described as the cousin-german to a mendicant, and yet there are some worthy citizens still who would doubtless be aghast at these statements and would wish to know how one is to spend $6,000 a year without extravagance. — Scribner's Monthly.

Note: "cousin-german" means first cousin, here the sense being "the next thing" or "essentially."


Death Valley

Death valley, in southern California, was formerly a lake of mineral water, and its dried up bed is now covered with a crust of salt, soda and borax to a depth of from six inches to three feet.

Close Fisted

1895

"Mr. Putterby, my old time neighbor of 40 years ago, was what we call in the country close fisted," said the man from the rural districts. "He could drive the closest bargain of any one I ever met and could keep house with the least buying. One of our coins in those days was the old silver 12-1/2 cent piece, variously called 'ninepence, 'York shilling' and 'bit,' according to the part of the country you were in, and it was the existence of this coin that enabled him to make a crowning triumph in the way of a close trade.

"A farm boy came along one day with a load of pumpkins which he was peddling about the village at a cent apiece. Mr. Putterby, after examining them, thought he would invest, but half a pumpkin was all that he cared to buy.

"'But a whole pumpkin is only a cent,' said the boy. 'How are you going to pay me for half a one?'

" 'The easiest thing in the world,' said Mr. Putterby, and so a pumpkin was cut, and he took one of the halves under his arm and handed the boy a shilling. 'Now give me the 12 cents change,' and taking the 12 coppers from the astonished boy he walked away with his purchase." — New York Sun.

Worked To The Limit

1895

How the Boys Got Ahead of One Man on a 10 Cent Find.

A man walking along Wrightwood avenue saw a bright dime lying on the sidewalk. He picked it up. Only a short distance ahead of him were two boys. He called to them, "Boys, did you lose anything?"

They turned around, and after looking at each other and then at the friendly man they shook their heads.

"Have you any money?" he asked them.

"I've got 65 cents," said one of them. "What kind of money is it?"

"I got a half dollar and three nicks." "No dimes, eh?"

"No, sir."

"I just picked up a dime back there, and I thought perhaps one of you might have dropped it."

He walked on to the corner. As he stood there waiting for a car he felt a pull at his coattail, and a small boy, with a streaked face, said, "Mister, did you find a 10 cent piece?"

"Yes, I found one."

"Well, I lost it, honest. Ma sent me for bread, and now she'll lick me."

"Well, here's your dime."

The boy grabbed it and ran.

That evening, when the man alighted from the car at the same corner, a boy, with a derby hat too large for him, halted him and asked: "Say, mister, did you find a dime? 'Cause I lost one on the way to the butcher's, and I'll catch it when the old man hears about it."

"Look here, I gave that dime to another boy. He said he was going to buy bread with it."

"He was stringin' you."

"I don't know what that means, but maybe the money belonged to you. Here's 10 cents."

Next morning another boy, with the proud evidence of a hole in his pocket to back up his claim, met the honest man at the front gate and asked for the dime. The man knew that some one must have lost the money, and as he didn't want to overlook the right boy he gave up another dime. That evening two more were lying in wait. He handed them 10 cents apiece on condition that they should notify all the boys in the neighborhood that he had been "worked" to the limit. — Chicago Record.

Thrift

1895

Thrift is a virtue. No people can long be free who are not thrifty. It is true that thrift sometimes passes beyond virtue, degenerating into the vice of greed. Because there are men who are greedy — drunk with the intoxication of wealth and power — we sometimes are told that wealth and power are criminal. There are some that hold that thrift is folly and personal ownership a crime. In the new Utopia all is to be for all, and no one can claim a monopoly, not even of himself. There may be worlds in which this shall be true. It is not true in the world into which you have been born. Nor can it be. In the world we know the free man should have a reserve of power, and this power is represented by money. If thrift ever ceases to be a virtue, it will be at a time long in the future. Before that time comes our Anglo-Saxon race will have passed away and our civilization will be forgotten. — David Starr Jordan in Popular Science Monthly.

Concerning the Nightcap

1895

The nightcaps almost universally worn some 25 years ago are now quite as universally discarded. There is a diversity of opinion in regard to the wisdom of this change. While some doctors assert that there is much less baldness since they were abandoned, others declare, with equal fervor, that neuralgia and catarrh are much more common since the nightcap was banished from the wardrobe. — Philadelphia Press.


More of Both

Molly — Ned Croesus is a much better match than Charlie Bullion. His fortune is larger, and he has more intelligence.
Polly — You mean that he has not only more dollars, but more sense. — Reading (Pa.) Telegram.

Baby Offered For Sale Given Away

1920

Declares She Needed Money to Restore Her Health, Is Excuse of Mother.

NEW YORK, N. Y. — Baby Margaret McNulty, who was offered at public sale recently for $250, has been withdrawn from the market and went to James F. Sweetman as a gift.

The mother, Mrs. Catherine McNulty, retains an undivided interest in the child's affection and will have permission to see her whenever she wishes.

Mrs. McNulty, whose husband died recently, offered her baby for sale when she found herself unable to earn an adequate living. She hoped the money she asked for the baby would give her an opportunity to regain her health, and at the same time she would know that Margaret was receiving proper care.

She changed her mind about the sale before the first of the scores of would-be purchasers arrived at her home and gave the child to Mr. Sweetman.

Worried for Weeks.

Margaret was in the Sweetman family once before. She came back to her mother when Mrs. Sweetman died. At that time Mrs. McNulty feared that Mr. Sweetman would be so occupied with the care of his own motherless child that he could not give Margaret adequate care.

It was only after the worry of weeks became desperation that Mrs. McNulty finally felt that circumstances had driven her to part with her baby.

She worked beyond her strength to care for the little daughter and her brother two years older. A year ago she was stricken with influenza. It was afterward the doctor first mentioned a fighting chance, which would cost money for transportation to the country, milk, eggs and rest.

Baby's Price List.

Her mind always brought up against the balance between this and the price list following:

Feel of one pair of little, clinging hands, $50; Weight of a tiny body, drowsy in the twilight, $50; 2,555 "good night" kisses, distributed over next seven years, $50; Sound of a baby voice prattling "I love you," $50; Thrill of the word "mother," $50. Total $250.

Her story went on:

"There wasn't any balance. But as I felt less able to be about I came to see that it wasn't what I wanted, but what is best for her.

"Some day she will be old enough to understand what I am doing and why. I shall not be with her then.

"Either way, whether I let her go voluntarily now or not, I should not be with her. But looking backward thru the understanding years she will know that I tried in the only way open to me to raise money to save her mother's life. She will feel that it was for her that I tried.

Has Right to Mother.

"Every baby has a right to a mother.

"And if taking money in exchange for my baby is the only way I can save her mother for her, am I not doing what is right?

"Some day, if I live thru the next few months, I may meet her again as my daughter, if the plan works out. Otherwise the doctor says I shall be here only a little while. This way I can find the right ones to take her; the other way she would be put in an institution."

Altho she made public her offer two days ago, Mrs. McNulty has hidden herself away with her two children, refusing to see any of the dozens who have called for inspection. After having brought herself to agree to the sale, she said she was not yet strong enough to take the next step.

Her only relatives, also in poor circumstances, live in Belfast, Ireland.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 3.

An Authorized Statement of President Wilson's Plans

1916

L.' Ames Brown in Collier's.

No sane man doubts that the coming of peace in Europe will modify profoundly the present conditions of business enterprise in the United States.

Among economists, as well as publicists, opinions differ as to the extent to which the industries of the nations now at war will be re-energized when peace makes them again our competitors in business. Some of our prophets have broadcasted the prediction that European manufacture may then be so speeded up that the resulting flood of products will swamp our industries unless they are protected by a solid tariff bulwark. Others, including President Wilson, hold that America, having husbanded and conserved her great resources while other nations were passing through the travail of a great war, is better able than ever before to meet the pace of her international competitors.

President Wilson believes that the American position is sound, not only because our resources have not been impaired, as have those of the European belligerents, but because our manufacturers have been stimulated and trained by new demands the war has made upon them. They have learned to meet, not only the war needs of Europe, but also those wants at home which heretofore foreign industry satisfied for us. Finally, the President attaches great importance to the fact that the United States has become, by reason of the Federal Reserve Act, the great financial power of the world.

Keen-minded men of every viewpoint are agreed, however, as to the imminence of severe new tests for American industry and as to the necessity of preparation to meet these tests. A period of intense competition looms up ahead of the nation — a competition of peace times which probably will not be comparable to any international industrial competition the world has ever known.

President Wilson believes that preparation for national defense is the first and most essential requirement the Government is called upon to meet. This he regards as a sort of insurance against an irremediable conflagration. But once our house has been put in order, it becomes the paramount duty of the Government to see to it that the most efficient preparation possible is made for the peace which will liberate the energies of the European power for industrial activity. Mr. Wilson already has looked ahead to the manner in which this primary duty of the American Government is to be performed, and he has evolved a comprehensive plan of preparation. It is the privilege of the writer of this article to present from intimate knowledge the views President Wilson has formulated with the object of giving a new and fuller meaning to American efficiency.

As soon as industrial preparedness is mentioned the mind of the American business man turns to the tariff. The tariff is the first line of trenches of American industry, our business men believe, and the first duty of the Government officers at work upon an adequate preparedness policy is to consider the question of tariff revision. Neither the President nor the well-informed business man has ignored the lesson contained in the announcement that Japan already has revised her tariff to meet new conditions; that England is preparing to enact prohibitive duties upon the products of her enemies and moderate duties upon the products of neutral nations at the close of the war; that Germany will revise all of her commercial treaties in 1917; and that a strong sentiment exists in England, France, Russia, and Italy for the negotiation of a commercial alliance.

The Tariff Must Be Revised.

President Wilson considers himself bound by no commitments save to a competitive tariff policy. The Underwood-Simmons Tariff Law embodied his ideas of the competitive needs of our industries at the time its schedules were framed — when pre-bellum industrial conditions obtained. His mind is entirely open as to the extent to which competitive conditions may have been modified by the European War. He does not need to be convinced that these conditions may be altered. He is prepared to act upon the facts as they may be gathered and their value impartially assessed through the instrumentality of a nonpartisan tariff commission. He considers that an earnest of his open-mindedness on tariff revision has been given in his support of the measure adopted at the present session of Congress to levy higher duties on dyestuffs as a means of securing necessary industries in the United States. The President considers his position, as here outlined, to be in the strictest accord with the avowed principles of his party.

The Tariff Commission is the instrumentality through which the President expects the Government to gather the facts needed for guidance in adjusting the tariff schedule. That would be perhaps the chief purpose of the Tariff Commission's suggested journey to Europe, though that would be only one phase of its inquiries. President Wilson is now as thoroughly convinced as anyone that America is not at the period of her destiny when free-trade ideas can be applied in our tariff making consistently with the necessities of revenue. It is an obvious fact, to which a section of the Democratic leaders, not including the President, persistently has closed its eyes, that all tariff duties in some degree protect the industries concerned. Tariffs protect, whether drawn with an eye to protection or to revenue, and the wisely drawn tariff law — the competitive tariff law — is that which balances revenue features with the nicest sensing of the needs of developing commerce and industry. It can be said that the President will study the report of the Tariff Commission with the view of formulating an adjustment of necessary tariff levies which will effect the fullest measure of development.

"There are many paths which lead up the mountainside, but when we reach the peak the same moon we shall see," says a proverb of Old Japan. How applicable it is to the present tariff discussion! Some one has called President Wilson's attention to the fact that fully 50 per cent of arguments among individuals about the tariff grow out of misunderstanding of isolated facts and not out of differences on fundamental principles. He does believe that a clear presentation of the facts relating to the conditions of competition between the United States and foreign countries will go far toward weeding out differences of opinion attributable to lack of information; so far that it will be possible to formulate a tariff policy for the United States which will command the support of an overwhelming majority of the people of the country regardless of partisan affiliations. The possibility of such an approximate agreement on a subject that hitherto has divided the electorate into two antagonistic sections is attributable in large measure (the President considers) to the development of independent thinking among the voters.

The great body of the people (Mr. Wilson believes) have made up their minds that the industries of the country ought not to be hampered by a too strict adherence to abstract tariff theories, but that the fullest measure of opportunity should be opened to them so long as the conferring of special privileges is avoided. On the other hand (as the President understands the public mind) there is the conviction that our industries ought not to be fattened to the point where apoplexy is threatened; but again, the conviction is just as clear that it would be the height of national folly to lower the entire range of tariff duties to such an extent that, coincidentally, the Government would be deprived of an important part of its accustomed revenue and the industries of all of their accustomed re-enforcement. So much for the President's views on the tariff, which relate solely to the defensive preparation of American business for the tests to come at the end of the war. The President believes that the aggressive and buoyant spirit of American business is such that it will be more concerned with offensive measures, with preparation to wade into the markets of the world, and to establish American supremacy there.

The President's policy includes numerous legislative and executive steps through which this preparation is to be accomplished. Most important of these is his plan to procure definitive authorization for American firms to co-operate for foreign-selling operations without regard to the provisions Of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. The President recognizes that in the past the American Government has been somewhat provincial in its attitude toward this need of our export business. The war and the vigorous investigation by the Federal Trade Commission have orientated the President and the Government, however. Now it is realized that the great competitive strength of Germany and the other industrial nations of Europe in the past has been due in large measure to the freedom with which their industries were permitted to organize for purposes of foreign trade. In Europe individual companies of one nation did not need to meet ruinous competition of other nations. They could present a solid national front. This was accomplished through the organization of syndicates and cartels which have flourished for decades in every great industrial nation except the United States.

Set Business Free.

The President's understanding of prospective post-bellum conditions holds up to his mind the probability that hereafter American industry may have to compete not only with those solid national organizations, but with international organizations. It is because he faces this prospect that the President believes it is high time for the American Government to strike from our industries some of the shackles in which they have labored because the Sherman Law failed to authorize the needed and wholesome processes of co-operative business organization.

President Wilson's attitude toward business organization as a principle for domestic as well as foreign application is different from that which has determined the policy of many Governmental officers in the past. Then the Government was so much concerned with eradicating the flaws in our business structure that it gave no large measure of thought to developing business opportunities. Under the President's inspiration the Trade Commission idea has been evolved, whereby the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice has been prevented from flourishing its sword over the heads of business organizations, merely because of the size of these organizations. Mere bigness is not held to be cause for suspicion by the Trade Commission, which is now the chief instrumentality of enforcing the anti-trust laws.

The Trade Commission has encountered little difficulty in straightening out kinks in commercial organizations which involve violations of law because business men have been made to realize that the main concern of this body has been the promotion of growth and the development of opportunity.

The Tariff Commission will find many ways of being useful to the business world if the plans President Wilson has formed for it are followed. The war has developed new industries in the United States, notably the dyestuff industry. Great benefit can be conferred on industries of this character, the President believes, if the Tariff Commission studies their methods of operation and subsequently the methods of operation and the economies which obtain among the European nations, where these industries have been longest established and are most efficient.

The President expects the Commission to go into the field of foreign tariff duties and to convey to American export organizations complete data as to the existence and effects of discriminating duties, commercial treaties, and preferential rates; the effects of export bounties and preferential transportation rates; and the effects of any special or discriminating privilege that may be used against the United States.

The scope of the Trade Commission's activities, according to the policy in the President's mind, includes the development of plans by which American business firms may best prepare themselves for the plunge into the international markets. For example the standardization of materials, manufacturing methods, and products, so that a uniformity of quality and price may be maintained in foreign markets, will obviate many of the difficulties experienced by American exporters in keeping up their historic endeavor to compete with one another. Another measure approved by the President is the development of a system of accounting which will enable the American business man to tell more accurately what it costs him to turn out his product. The President was surprised recently to learn from Federal Trade Commissioner Hurley that, whereas 50 per cent of German manufacturers can compute the exact cost of their products, only 10 per cent of American manufacturers can do so.

In general, the President intends that the Trade Commission shall apply itself vigorously to methods of reducing the cost and increasing the efficiency of production.

The President is wholly committed to plans for maintaining and developing the transportation facilities at the disposal of the nation's business. His views on the need for an American merchant marine such as will assure American manufacturers means of conveying their products to foreign markets without depending on other nations, are now well known, and the shipping bill which embodies his ideas is now before Congress. The public is not so well informed, however, as to the President's attitude respecting the conservation and development of our domestic transportation facilities, namely, the railroads. With a view to obtaining the real facts about the difficulties confronting our great railroad companies the President has brought about the creation of a Congressional Commission to make a thoroughgoing inquiry into all phases of railroad problems. The President does not ignore the fact that in many instances the State Railroad Commissions and the Federal Interstate Commerce Commission have worked at cross purposes, thereby seriously retarding the development of the roads as national utilities. The President's mind is open on the subject of Federal incorporation and he will embody in his constructive business policy the conclusions which may seem justified by the investigation of the Congressional Commission.

Welcomes "Dollar Exchange"

There are many other phases of the railroad problem, however, regarding which the President desires the public to be better informed so that the Government may be enabled more fully to do its duty by the roads. These relate to credits and methods of expansion, as well as to schemes of regulation; and most important of all, to the spirit in which the public is to approach all questions relating to the welfare of the common carriers.

Another phase of the President's plans centers around his desire to provide means of assuring to the country the most efficient exertion of its great accumulated financial strength at the end of the war.

The United States has more gold than either group of the European belligerents and her financial position is incomparably stronger than that of any European nation with which we are shortly to engage in competition. But the President faces the fact that this new and happy condition has been created by the war and that plans must now be evolved for expanding our credit structure if the nation's industries are to reap the full benefits of our great financial strength when peace comes. The President believes that one of the measures which should be taken toward this end is the establishment of joint agencies of the Federal reserve banks in Europe as soon as sufficiently stable conditions are restored there. He also favors the establishment of such agencies in South America. It is his policy further to encourage American banking institutions to establish foreign branches in South America, where American trade is endeavoring to establish new footholds, and in general to adopt the most liberal attitude permissible while observing the spirit of the Federal Reserve act. The development of "dollar exchange" he contemplates with real enthusiasm.

The Government Must Help Business.

The President's policy may be summarized in the statement that he desires the Government to assume the role of the vigorous and robust friend of American business men in their endeavors to cope with competitors from other nations. This general statement covers not only the measures which have been discussed in this article and the holding of financial conferences between the United States and countries with which our trade may be expanded, but other concrete ideas for legislative enactments and executive acts which will promote the same purpose.

The President believes that the measures which his administration has taken for conserving and energizing American labor are part and parcel of the policy which I have been permitted here to set forth.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 8.

Our Land Reserve Fund

1916

Augusta, Me., Sept. 23 — One of the purposes for which the Maine legislature is called in special session next Friday is to make provision for using the state land reserve fund.

From 1836 to 1839, no state tax was levied in Maine because the income from public lands was sufficient to meet all demands. Maine owes the Land Reserve fund about $450,000 various sums of annual interest at 6 per cent since 1848. This debt is theoretical, since there is none to whom it may be paid.

This fund dates back to 1788 when Maine was a part of Massachusetts. To encourage settlement in Maine, the Massachusetts legislature provided that in setting off townships there should be reserved for public uses four lots of 320 acres each. One was to become automatically the property of the first settled minister, another was for the support of the ministry, another for the support of common schools and the fourth was the "State lot," to be disposed of as the state might choose.

All townships surveyed prior to 1832 contained originally 1280 acres of reserved lands, but by an act of that year it was provided that 960 acres should be reserved for the benefit of schools, the other 320 acres to be set aside as the state lot. Thus it happens that the reserved lots are of different acreages, some of 960 and others of 1000.

In 1848 the state treasurer was authorized by the legislature to keep an account of all money received from the reserved lands and to place it in the treasury, each sum received to be credited to the township which contained the reserved lands yielding the amount. Since 1848 each township has been credited with the net receipts from the sale of timber and grass from its reserved lands.

When a township is organized as a plantation for school purposes the state must pay over to it annually 6 per cent on the trust fund credited to it. When a township is incorporated as a town the funds accrued and the lands themselves become automatically the property of the town, and the title to the reserved lands vests in the town; but the funds turned over and any money received from the sale of timber or land must still be reserved for the schools of the town.

The principal of the fund now amounts to $446,871.17. State treasurer Newbert and chief clerk Warren D. Trask have for a long time been figuring the interest to be credited this fund on the various sums since 1848, and it has been a gigantic task. The total interest is now given out as $413,977.05.

Gov. Curtis is of the opinion that some of this fund should be used, but he wishes to make the using of it legal. The interest on the reserved land fund is approximately $26,000 per year, which appears to the credit of the various counties as follows: Aroostook, $8412; Franklin, $3229; Hancock, $421; Oxford, $2139; Penobscot, $1925; Piscataquis, $2893; Somerset, $5017 and Washington, $1797.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 2.

"Thank You" Is All She Gets

1916

And Just Think, She Found and Restored $2,500 Cash.

NEW YORK. — Joseph Rorner of East Norwalk, Connecticut, recovered $2,500 he left in an elevated train in Brooklyn.

Just as Rorner was reporting his loss to the police a young woman purchased a ticket at the City Hall station of the Third avenue elevated line and pushed a bundle thru the ticket window.

"Here is a bundle which I picked up in a Brooklyn elevated train," she explained.

The package was found to contain a big roll of gold and silver certificates. It was sent to the lost and found department of the Interborough.

The following morning the general storekeeper of the Interborough read of Rorner's loss and wired him to call, which Rorner did at once. After identifying himself he received his bank roll. As he left he said, "I thank you."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.

Peddler Recovers His Cash

1916

Identifies His Lost Roll by Odor of Onions.

NEW YORK — The much-maligned onion is a good friend to Simon Silverman of Brooklyn, who drives a fruit and vegetable wagon.

Simon missed $32 just after he had delivered his last load to a customer at Reid avenue and Kosciusko street. He told Patrolman Gleason that he thought George Boland had picked up the bills. Boland, who was standing near by, was searched and a roll of bills found on him.

"Are these yours?" asked the policeman.

"My money always smell of onions," replied Silverman.

Gleason took a whiff of the roll and when he had recovered said:

"They're yours, all right."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

Prisoner Eats the Evidence

1916

Man Is Said to Have Swallowed Marked $10 Bill.

NEW YORK — Herman Horowitz, who said he was a delegate of the Painters' Union, was arrested by Detective Giery on a charge of extortion. On the way to the station it is alleged that Horowitz seized a marked ten dollar bill, which Giery was holding as evidence, and swallowed it.

The complainant against Horowitz, who is 30 years old and lives in Brooklyn, is Louis Wall, a boss painter. It is charged that Horowitz threatened to call a strike of painters employed by Wall unless Wall paid $10. Wall, it is said, told him to come back later.

Wall complained to the police and Detective Giery was assigned to the case. It is alleged Wall gave a marked $10 bill to Horowitz. Afterward, it is said, Giery arrested Horowitz and says that he found the bill in Horowitz's pocket.

As the detective and his prisoner were on the way to the police station, Horowitz engaged Giery in a fight and wrested the bill from the detective's hand. This done, Horowitz is said to have swallowed the evidence while the detective struggled to save it. Then Horowitz accompanied the detective to jail without further trouble.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 7.

"Lost" Gems Are Recovered

1916

Package of Valuables Turns Up in St. Paul Postoffice.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — A few days ago a St. Paul woman gave a Chicago hotel clerk an envelope containing jewels valued at $1,500, $200 in currency and a $50 draft to be placed in the hotel safe over night. The contents of the envelope have now been returned to the woman by Otto Raths, St. Paul postmaster.

When the valuables were called for at the Chicago hotel they could not be found. The clerk to whom they had been given had started on a two-weeks vacation. The woman stormed at the hotel management but didn't get any trace of her valuables. When she asked for her bill she found on it an item for "postage 4 cents."

The clerk had affixed the stamps and the valuables had been sent to St. Paul. The envelope was badly torn on its arrival here and postal clerks puzzled over the strange manner of shipping valuables until the woman appeared, claimed the shipment and explained its cause. Why they were sent here has not been explained.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 11.

Restitution After Thirty-One Years

1916

MAN REPAYS MONEY HE WRONGFULLY TOOK.

Aged and Needy Recipient Made Comfortable With $200 Gold and $400 as Interest.

SOMERSET, Pa. — William Speicher, of Kantner, a news agent on the Somerset & Cambria Branch Railroad, received a letter from an aged resident of Quemahoning Township, in which is told how a man with a troubled conscience returned, with interest, $200, the theft of which enabled him to grow well off while the owner of the money was made poor for life by the loss of it.

"On May 31st, thirty-one years ago," wrote the aged man, "I started for Stoyestown with a pocketbook containing $200 to make the first payment on a home that I had purchased. When I arrived there the package was missing. I returned home at once, but could find no trace of it. It was money that I had earned by hard labor. I was much broken up over the loss, ill health followed and I never had a home of my own.

"A few days ago there came a rap at my door. I opened it and a stranger stood there. I invited him in and he seated himself. He sized me up, but spoke but little. After inquiring about my identity he took from his pocket $200 in gold and counted it out to me. He said it was my money and asked me to accept it. 'I owe you interest on it for 31 years,' he went on. 'Here is $400 more to cover that. Thank God, I am free once more,' he said. I was amazed. I could not understand his actions and asked an explanation.

"'Thirty-one years ago,' he replied, 'I was on my way from a part of Somerset County to Johnstown to take a train for Kansas. I had but a few dollars in money. I was walking on the road behind you while you were driving to Stoyestown and saw you drop the money. I picked it up and stowed it away in my pocket. At the latter town I got your name and went out West. I took up land near Leavenworth, Kansas, and fortune came my way. I took up more land. Returning to my native county I got married. I grew wealthy and I can now count my wealth by many thousands of dollars, but having your money in my possession always worried me, so I decided to return it to you and confess that I took it.'

"He said that he found out that his conscience, was worth more to him than his wealth, then he bade me good-by."

From almost destitute circumstances at 75 years of age, the old man has been placed in comparative comfort.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 11.

Started In With "Enthusiasm"

1900

In an interview, Booker T. Washington tells the story of some of his early experiences at Tuskegee.

"After teaching in the ordinary way awhile, the impression began to grow upon me that I was largely throwing away my time, trying to give these students a book education without getting hold of them in their home life, and without teaching them how to care for their bodies, and inculcating in them habits of neatness, order and industry. Here it was that I conceived the idea of such a work as has followed."

"Had you any capital to start such a school with?"

"I had unbounded enthusiasm. I began looking around to see if I could get hold of some land. I found a farm near Tuskegee, that I thought would answer the purpose, but I couldn't buy real estate with enthusiasm, and I hadn't a cent of money. But my boldness led me to write to Gen. Marshall, the treasurer of Hampton, and ask him to loan me $500 to make a payment on that farm; and to my unbounded surprise he sent me a cheek for what I asked, and I wasn't long in getting the school moved."

"How have you since managed to get all your buildings and the other thousands of acres of land?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you how we got our first building, though. We pitched in and built it ourselves — yes, sir; people scoffed, but we even made our own bricks. The point at which we stuck was the burning of the bricks — none of us knew how to fire a kiln. We had no money to hire labor, but we had to have those bricks, and I owned a gold watch which I took to the pawnshop and got enough money to employ an experienced brick maker to burn the bricks."

"That was a heroic measure, sure. No doubt you cherished that watch as — "

"I have never got that watch out of pawn yet, but we are now manufacturing a million bricks a year. That was a pretty poor sort of building, but we builded self-respect and manhood into it, and when white people saw what we could do, we won their respect. Now we can put up a building that no one need be ashamed of. In our last building the steam heating apparatus and the electric light fixtures were put in by our own steamfitters and electricians. The plans were by an architect from our own school."

—The Ram's Horn, March 17, 1900, p. 14.

Prize For an Honest Man

1901

With $1,000 in lieu of a lantern Mrs. Nancy B. Irving, a book publisher of Chicago, has started out to emulate Diogenes in his search for an honest man. She believes it an impossibility to live a strictly honest business or professional life under present conditions. She offers to deposit $1,000 in a Chicago bank, which will be paid to the first business or professional man who can conclusively prove that he has carried on his work for a month without lying.

Put Money Aside

1901

Take 10 cents to the nearest available savings bank and deposit it to your credit. Keep it up until you have a dollar.

Don't wait to do this until you have situation. Do it now. If you have change for car fare, walk.

This is the only way to save money. If you wait until your salary is raised or until you happen to have an errand near the savings bank, you may be dead before you lay by a cent.

There is only one way to save money. That is to begin now. — New York Journal.

The Money In His Pocket

1901

A young Pittsburger arose from his bed one morning and, dressing, went down stairs to breakfast. As he sat at the table he carelessly put his right hand into his trousers pocket and was surprised to find $7.25. He knew that when he retired for the night he had just 25 cents and had fallen asleep while wondering where he could borrow money the next morning. He was highly elated over the discovery, for, although he thought long and hard, he could not remember how he had come into the possession of the money. After work that day he took a friend to the opera and later to supper. When he returned home about midnight, a brother stopped into his room and said, "Harry, did you pay that bill for me today?"

The young man was almost dumbfounded. It all came to him at once. Shortly after he had retired the previous night his brother had entered the room and, placing the money in his trousers pocket, said: "Say, old man. when you go down town tomorrow, I wish you would pay Mr. — that bill I owe him. I promised to let him have it by tomorrow."

The young man was dozing at the time, and that accounts for his failure to remember what his brother had said to him. He was kept busy borrowing from friends to make up the amount the next day, and he declares that hereafter his brother will have to pay his own bills. — Pittsburgh Chronicle.

One Cent

1920

An ingenious professor of mathematics, according to the Omaha News, has figured out that 1 cent, invested at the beginning of the Christian era (1,919 years ago) at a rate of interest equal to the Government Liberty bonds, that is, 4¼ per cent, with interest compounded to date, would make 100,000 globes of solid gold, each the weight of the earth.

The earth weighs six and twenty-one ciphers tons. But the 1 cent with its accumulations, reduced to a minimum weight in gold at the rate of $20 in the ounce, would, he says, make 100,000 planets of the earth's weight!

The moral is: Save the pennies!