WHERE TO INVEST MONEY.
What Shall I Do with My Money?--Enormous Profits in Trust
Companies--The Most Costly Bell in the World--The Bell
Telephone--Edward Bellamy’s Vision--The Best Paying Stocks--$11 per
Day in a Lodging House--How a Young Man Made $10,000--How to Start
with Nothing and Be Worth $100,000 when You are 40 Years Old.
The first question is, How to get money? The second, How to invest it?
The general distrust of money concerns is seen in the enormous deposits
in the savings banks--a disposal of savings which yields the smallest
returns--and also in the readiness, not to say rush, to take government
bonds when only three per cent. or even less is offered. We give a few
of the best paying investments, but the list is by no means exhaustive.
The first four are in a section (Brooklyn Borough) of a single city, but
there is no reason to doubt that other cities, and other sections of the
same city, can make an equally good showing. Indeed, many Western
concerns pay much higher dividends.
947. ILLUMINATING COMPANIES.--Of the ten illuminating companies of
Brooklyn, not one last year paid a less dividend than five per cent.,
and one paid ten per cent.
948. TRUST COMPANIES.--Of the eight trust companies in the same borough,
only one paid less than eight per cent., and that paid six. The highest
paid sixteen per cent.
949. BANKS.--Of the twenty-three banks of Brooklyn, State and National,
one paid its stockholders sixteen per cent.; one fourteen; two, twelve;
one, ten; and four, eight; only one paid less than five per cent.
950. INSURANCE COMPANIES.--Of the four local insurance companies, one
paid its stockholders twenty per cent., and the others twelve, ten and
five.
951. TIN PLATE COMPANY.--All the tin manufacturers of the country are
about to be associated in one great company, to be known as the American
Tin Plate Company. The stockholders expect to double their profits.
952. POTTERY COMBINATION.--Under the laws of New Jersey, the pottery
trust has just been organized with a capital of $20,000,000. The price
of the stock is rapidly advancing.
953. CONSOLIDATED ICE.--An ice company, to be called the Consolidated
Ice, will soon control all the trade of New York City. Prices are to go
up, and profits, instead of a meager four or five per cent., as at
present, will, it is expected, be eight or ten per cent.
954. FLOUR TRUST.--British and American stockholders have combined to
form one of the biggest trusts in the world. The capital of the new
company will be about $150,000,000, and the output 95,000 barrels of
flour daily. Should the profits be only twenty-five cents a barrel, the
net earnings will be nearly $25,000 a day; but it is expected that with
the increased price, the profits will be at least double that figure.
955. FURNITURE COMBINE.--This is a new trust which is soon to be
floated, and which proposes to control the manufacture of all the school
furniture in the United States. The capital is to be $17,000,000. Some
idea of the enormous profits awaiting the stockholders may be formed
when it is stated that the present output is more than $15,000,000. The
combination means decreased expenses in operation, higher prices for
customers, and, of course, greater incomes for stockholders.
956. TELEPHONE MONOPOLY.--One of the greatest monopolies of the country
is that of the Bell Telephone. The company has increased its capital
stock in eighteen years from $110,000 to $30,000,000. In that time it
has earned $42,903,680. It pays dividends of eighteen per cent., and
could pay more, if allowed to do so by its charter. The surplus is used
to increase the capital stock, so that in addition to its enormous
dividends, every little while it presents its stockholders with new
blocks of this exceedingly profitable stock. The present price of shares
is about $280.
957. A GREAT ELECTRICAL COMPANY.--Another of Bellamy’s dreams is to be
realized. New York capitalists, with millions of dollars at their
command, have united in a great scheme to supply electrical energy to
run the elevated and surface railroads and the factories of the
metropolis. They propose to do away with steam entirely, except for
heating purposes. They will control more than 1,000 square miles of the
watersheds of the Catskills, and the mountain streams will be harnessed
to furnish electricity for New York. The company claim to have the
names of such well known persons as Thomas C. Platt, Silas B. Dutcher,
and Edward Lauterbach as interested persons in the scheme, and it is
said that the undertaking will be on a much grander scale than the
similar one at Niagara, to which the Vanderbilts, the Webbs, and other
famous manipulators of finance have furnished backing. If this scheme
should materialize, it will undoubtedly be one of the best paying
investments.
958. INDUSTRIAL STOCKS.--Here is a partial list of the best paying
stocks. Of course, where the interest is large, the price of the stocks
is correspondingly high. The investor, before paying the high prices
asked, should use his best judgment in considering whether the present
rates are likely to be maintained. The highest dividends on industrial
stocks last year were as follows: Adams’ Express, 8; Consolidated Gas
(New York), 8; Peter Lorillard (tobacco), 8; American Tobacco, 9;
Diamond Match, 10; American Sugar Refining Company, 12; American Bell
Telephone, 18; Standard Oil, 33; Welsbach Light, 80.
959. RAILROADS DIVIDENDS.--Stock in such railroads as the Pennsylvania,
Lake Shore, Michigan Central, New York Central, New York and New Haven,
are safe and profitable investments, if you can get them. The last-named
road has paid ten per cent. for many years, though recently the figures
have dropped to eight. The railroad stocks paying the highest dividends
last year were as follows: New York, New Haven and Hartford, 8 per
cent.; Great Southern (Alabama), 9; Manchester and Lawrence, 10; Norwich
and Worcester, 10; Boston and Providence, 10; Connecticut River, 10;
Georgia, 11; Northern (New Hampshire), 11; Philadelphia, Germantown and
Northern, 12; Pennsylvania Coal, 16.
960. LODGING HOUSE.--A man leased an abandoned hotel, containing 100
small rooms, and fitted them up with single beds. He charged a uniform
price of twenty-five cents a night. The location was down town in New
York, the congested district where congregate travelers, tradesmen,
workingmen, and the vast class of floaters. His rooms were nearly always
full. Income per day, $25. Daily expenses: Night clerk, $2; two
chambermaids ($15 each per month), $1. Rent, $5; lights, $1; laundry,
$3; sundries, $1. Total expenses per day, $13. Net profit, $12 per day.
He says, “I am sure I could double these profits if I could double my
accommodations.”
961. REAL ESTATE.--A young man twenty-one years of age, and possessing
$500, bought a tract of land in the outskirts of a suburban city for
$1,500. The tract contained twenty acres, and he paid $500 down and gave
a mortgage for the remainder. He had the property surveyed and divided
into lots, eight to the acre. The tract was located on the bend of a
river, and he called it “Riverside Park.” Lots were advertised for sale
at $100 each. The first year he cleared off the mortgage by the sale of
lots. He had remaining 145 lots. In five years he sold all these lots at
an average price of $85. Total amount received for lots, $13,825. Price
of land, $1,500. Taxes, $625. Surveying, grading, etc., $762.
Advertising and other methods of booming the property, $1,272. Total
cost and expenses, $3,534. Net profit, $10,291. By repeating this
process on a larger scale in another city, this young man, who started
at sixteen years of age with nothing, and by hard work and economy had
save $500 at twenty-one, found himself at the age of forty with
$100,000. The secrets of his success were four: Shrewdness in foreseeing
where property would be likely to advance; energy in quickly changing
the property from a farm into building lots; taste in making them
attractive, and giving the place a pretty name; and, most important of
all, the knowing how to create a market. We have known this process
repeated by others with almost equally marked success. In all our large
cities there are land companies developing suburban property and making
money rapidly.