certainly make money, and make it fast. There is no trouble about it in individual cases; but if it should be adopted as a rule by all merchants, it would soon become impracticable. There is no fear, however, that the whole trade will suddenly become so wise and so keen. But any one may undertake it with impunity, and be sure to make an early fortune.

The merchant who starts with the modest determination to make one thousand dollars above his expenses for the first year, to owe no man a dollar at the end of the year, and to have then his money in bank or represented by good marketable property, will, if he judiciously seconds his determinations by his deeds, be a wealthy man at the end of ten years. For this small sum, as a certain gain annually, is more than the average of mercantile houses make, as may be seen from the statistics in a former chapter.

Let us give this case more particular examination. The second year our cautious merchant will undoubtedly double his $1,000, the third year triple it, and so on, increasing his income by $1,000 every year, till the end of thirteen years. Keeping his gains at work in his business, he will then have made, say, an average of $5,000 per year; and by using them for cash purchases he will improve it at a rate equivalent to eight per cent per annum. This will be an average of $16 a day. Now look at the table of earnings for ten years, and we find the earnings of $10, $5, and $1, added and improved for the time given, amounting to

the neat sum of $74,564.31. And if he only made $1,000 a year for twenty-five years, improving it to the rate of eight per cent in his business, he would have $74,342, being $3.13 per day, with eight per cent compound interest.

But what wholesale merchant, with the ordinary volume of business, selling for cash or easily negotiable paper without recourse, can not instead make $25 a day? This in ten years, improved at seven per cent, would be $111,144; in twenty-five years, $512,549; in thirty, $768,865; in forty, $1,640,525; in fifty, $3,374,939. How many ever amass these sums? and how few do not make the specified sum per day, and even more? It is no great daily amount to make; but it is a very large sum to keep. From this it will appear how largely the energies and attention of the merchant should be directed thitherward. It is, indeed, the whole of money-making. The getting of the same daily sum will pretty nearly take care of itself.

The following suggestions will be found useful in this connection:

LOOK TO YOUR CREDITS.

Avoid large sales to one person.
Be modest, but feel your strength.
Have a small house and large capital.
Look out when your credit is too good.
Take little credit, and have much money.

Owe no man a dollar, if you can avoid it.
Keep your expenses low, your profits high.
Let fashion alone, or it will not let you alone.
Be honest, economical, agreeable, and pleasant.
Make a little, and make it sure; then look at it.
Have an eye to all that may damage by neglect.
Make no useless expenditures while you owe others.
Get into an old firm, rather than establish a new

one.

If you fail, give up all to your creditors, and start

anew.

Have a general extended knowledge of all things you deal in.

When you buy, take care; when you sell, take quadruple care.

Marry early a good wife; but a poor one may be better than none.

Go into business on your own account rather late than too early in life.

Credit no more than you can afford to lose; but no credit will make more money.

Keep your property well insured: you can not afford to lose while you are trying to make.

Mrs. Grundy will not pay your bills; therefore don't let your wife spend too much to please her.

Failure is one among many things the purchaser pays for in the price of the goods he buys; and therefore he has the moral right to fail. But when he

does fail, he is also morally bound to give up what he has and all he has to his creditors, since that is tacitly presupposed in the sale. As a rule, failure is disgraceful, because it indicates inability, incompetency, and lack of skill and knowledge, and thus affects the bankrupt for life. The seller must charge a guarantee on his sales to cover possible loss by failure; and the buyer is bound by necessary limitations to pay at the time of failure no more than he has then on hand. To do so afterwards, paying his creditors to the last cent, when he has the means to do so, is praiseworthy in the highest degree.

No one can rightly estimate the pecuniary benefit resulting from kind, just, and fair treatment of those whom you employ. Gentle and righteous dealings with those who work for you or manage your affairs will in due time put money in your pocket. The opposite usage will lose you as much, if not more.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE BROKER AND THE COMMISSION MERCHANT.

Commerce, in every age of the world, has been the chief pioneer in the march of man's civilization. Unlike the achievements of war, the track of commerce is ever to be traced by the blessings which follow its footsteps. It travels over no bloodstained fields to secure its noble ends: it brings man not into deadly strife with man, but into friendly and harmonious association. Its conquests are not heralded by tidings of fierce and deadly and demoniac conflict: no blood stains its triumphs, no human agony has it to answer for. It works by far different and immeasurably better means. It removes local prejudices, breaks down national antipathies, and binds the whole family of man together by the strong ties of association and of mutual and dependent interests.

HON. REVERDY JOHNSON.

HE great classes of merchants are not exhausted with the wholesale merchant,

or jobber, and the retailer.

There re

main the broker and the commission merchant. The former is paid by the percentage he receives for purchasing or selling property of various kinds, or for procuring insurance or labor, and often money. Sometimes this "brokerage" is paid by the person receiving, and sometimes by him who through his agent is parting with property or labor; sometimes by the borrower, at others by the lender; by the