ACROSS THE ATLANTIC.
IT is in America, as was to be expected, that rise more quickly than in
any other country. Every one is ambitious, and there he realises the
fact that no position is beyond his power if he will but work for it.
Franklin was a printer’s boy, General Putnam was a farmer, Roger Sherman
was a shoemaker, and Andrew Jackson was a poor boy, who worked his way up
from the humblest position; Patrick Henry, the great American orator, was
a country tavern-keeper; Abraham Lincoln was equally low placed in his
start in life. But even in America it is hard work to make a fortune.
Niorse, an American artist, but a better chemist and mechanician than a
painter, thought out the magnetic telegraph on a Havre packet-ship, but
met the common fate of inventors. He struggled for years with poverty
and a thousand difficulties. He failed to interest capitalists. At
last, when he was yielding to despair, and meditated suicide, on the last
night of a session of Congress, at midnight, when the Appropriation Bill
was being rushed through, he got an appropriation of £6,000 for an
experimental line between Washington and Baltimore; then success,
rewards, honours, titles of nobility, gold medals, and an immense
fortune. The American inventor of the sewing machine had similar
misfortune, and then as great a success.
“There are two kinds of men and two kinds of business in New York,” says
an American author. The old-school merchants of New York are few; their
ranks are thinning every day. They were distinguished for probity and
honour; they took time to make a fortune. Their success proved that
business success and mercantile honour were a good capital. Their
colossal fortunes and enduring fame prove that, to be successful, men
need not be mean, or false, or dishonest. When John Jacob Astor was a
leading merchant in Now York, there were few who could buy goods by the
cargo. A large dealer in tea, knowing that few merchants could outbid
him, or purchase a cargo, concluded to buy a whole shipload that had just
arrived, and was offered at auction. He had nobody to compete with, and
he expected to have everything his own way. Just before the sale
commenced, to his consternation he saw Mr. Astor walking slowly down the
wharf. He went to meet him, and said—“Mr. Astor, I am sorry to meet you
here this morning; if you will go to your counting-room, and stay till
after the sale, I’ll give you a thousand dollars.” Without thinking much
about it, Mr. Astor consented, turned on his heel, and said—“Send round
the cheque.” He lost money, but he kept his word. When the lease for
Astor House was nearly out, some parties from Boston tried to hire it
over the heads of the then tenants. In a private interview with Mr.
Astor, they wanted to know his terms. He replied, “I will consult Mr.
Stetson (the tenant), and let you know.” To do that was, as they were
well aware, to defeat the object they had in view. The old New York
merchant never gave a guarantee as to the genuineness of the article he
sold. It were needless to ask it.
In New York, in Boston, and elsewhere, the rule of prosperity is plain.
One of the best-known presidents of a New York bank began his career by
blacking boots: he came to New York a penniless lad, and sought
employment at a store. “What can you do?” said the merchant. “I can do
anything,” replied the boy. “Take these boots and black them.” He did
so, and he blacked them well, and did everything else well.
Alexander Stewart (when alive, reputed to be the richest man in the
world) was born in Ireland, came young to New York, and, with a little
money that was left him by a relative in Ireland, took a small shop. He
kept in it from fourteen to eighteen hours a day. He was his own
errand-boy, porter, book-keeper, and salesman. He lived over his store,
and, for a time, one room served as kitchen, bedroom, and parlour. Mr.
Stewart began business when merchants relied on themselves, when banks
gave little aid, when traders made money out of their customers, not out
of their creditors. One day, while doing business in this little store,
a note became due which he was unable to pay. The banks were unfriendly,
and his friends, as is always the case when you want to borrow, were
peculiarly hard up. Resolving not to be dishonoured, he met the crisis
boldly. He made up his mind never to be in such a fix again. He marked
every article in his shop below cost price; he flooded the city with
hand-hills; they were everywhere—in basements, shops, steamboats, hotels,
and cars, promised everybody a bargain, and took New York by storm. The
little shop was crowded. Mr. Stewart presided in person. He said but
little, offered his goods, and took the cash, all attempts to beat him
down he quietly pointed to the price plainly written on each package. He
had hardly time to eat or sleep; everyone came and bought, and when they
got home customers were delighted to find that they were not cheated, but
that they had secured a real bargain. Long before the time named for
closing the sale in the hand-bill, the whole store was cleaned out, and
every article sold for cash. The troublesome note was paid, and a
handsome balance left over. For the future, he resolved to trade no more
on credit. The market was dull, times were bad, cash was scarce; he
would buy on his own terms the best of goods, and thus he laid down the
foundation of a fortune which, long before he died, was reckoned at
30,000,000 dols. 1836, an American writer thus described his mode of
doing business:—“Though Mr. Stewart sells goods on credit, as do other
merchants, he buys solely for cash. If he takes a note, instead of
getting it discounted at a bank, he throws it into a safe and lets it
mature. It does not enter into his business, and the non-payment of it
does not disturb him. He selects the style of carpet he wants, buys
every yard made by the manufacturer, and pays cash. He monopolises
high-priced laces, sells costly goods, furs, and gloves, and compels the
fashionable world to pay him tribute. Whether he sells a first-rate or a
fourth-rate article, the customer gets what he bargained for. A lady on
a journey, who passes a couple of days in the city, can find every
article that she wants for her wardrobe at a reasonable price. She can
have the goods made up in any style, and sent to her house at a given
hour, for the opera or ball, or for travel. Mr. Stewart will take a
contract for the complete outfit of a steamship; furnish the carpets,
mirrors, chandeliers, china, silver-ware, cutlery, mattresses, linen,
blankets, napkins, with every article needed, in every style demanded.
He can defy competition. He buys from the manufacturer at the lowest
cash price; he presents the original bills, charging only a small
commission. The parties have no trouble; the articles are of the first
class. They save from ten to twenty per cent., and the small commission
pays Stewart handsomely. He furnishes hotels and churches in the same
manner; as easily he could supply the army and navy. He attends
personally to his business. He is down early, and remains late; those
who pass through the Broadway at the small hours may see the light
burning brightly from the working-room of the marble palace. He remains
till the day’s work is done and everything squared up. He knows what is
in the store, and not a package escapes his eye. He sells readily,
without consulting books, invoice, or salesmen. He has partners, but
they are partners only in the profits. He can buy and sell as he will,
and holds the absolute management of the concern in his own hands.”
Who has not heard of the Harpers of New York, whose publishing house in
Franklin Square was, and it may be is, the largest of the kind in the
world; as they do all the business connected with the publication of a
book under one roof. In 1810, James Harper left his rural home on Long
Island, to become a printer. His parents were devout Methodists. His
mother was a woman of rare gifts. She embraced him on his departure, and
bade him never forget the altar of his God, his home, or that he had good
blood in his veins. In his new office all the mean and servile work was
put upon the printer’s devil, as he was called. At that time Franklin
Square was inhabited by genteel people—wealthy merchants; and poor James
Harper’s appearance attracted a good deal of unpleasant comment. His
clothes, made in the old homestead, were coarse in material, and
unfashionable in cut. The young swells made fun of the poor lad. They
shouted to him across the streets—“Did your coat come from Paris?” “Give
us a card to your tailor.” “Jim, what did your mother give a yard for
your broadcloth?” Sometimes, in their insolence, the fellows came near,
and, under pretence of feeling the fineness of the cloth, would give an
unpleasant nip. The lad had a hard life of it; but he resolved not to be
imposed upon. One day, as he was doing some menial work, he was attacked
by one of his tormentors, who asked him for his card. He turned on his
assailant, having deliberately set down a pail that he was carrying,
kicked him severely, and said, “That’s my card; take good care of it.
When I am out of my time, and set up for myself, and you need
employment—as you will—come to me and I will give you work.” Forty-one
years after, when Mr. Harper’s establishment was known throughout all the
land—after he had borne the highest municipal honours of the city, and
had become one of the wealthiest men in New York—the person who had
received the card came to Mr. James Harper’s establishment, and asked for
employment, claiming it on the ground that he had kept the card given him
forty-one years before. With great fidelity James served out his time.
His master was pleased with him. In a patronising way he told him, when
he was free, he should never want for employment. James rather surprised
his old master by informing him that he intended to set up for himself;
that he had already engaged to do a job, and that all he wanted was a
certificate from his master that he was worthy to be trusted with a book.
In a small room in Dover Street, James, and his brother John, began their
work as printers. Their first job was 2,000 volumes of “Seneca’s
Morals.” Their second book laid the foundation of their fortune. The
Harpers had agreed to stereotype an edition of the Prayer-book for the
Episcopal Society of New York. Stereotyping was in a crude state, and
the work was roughly done. When the Harpers took the contract, they
intended to have it done at some one of the establishments in the city.
They found that it would cost them more than they were to receive. They
resolved to learn the art, and do the work themselves. It was a slow and
difficult labour, but it was accomplished. It was pronounced the best
piece of stereotyping ever seen in New York. It put the firm at the head
of the business. It was found to be industrious, honourable, and
reliable. In six years it became the great printing-house of New York.
Other brothers joined the firm of Harper Brothers. Besides personal
attention to business, the brothers exercised great economy in their
personal and domestic expenses; one thousand dollars was what it cost the
brothers each to live for the first ten years of their business life. As
regarded their _employés_, the utmost care was taken. The liberal,
genial, honourable spirit of the proprietors prompted them to pay the
best wages, and secure the best talent. Those who entered the house,
seldom or never left it. Boys became men, and remained there as
_employés_ all the same.
In New York the love of Mammon finds no small place even in sanctified
breasts. The author of “Sunshine and Shade,” in New York, says—“Among
the most excited in the stock-market are men who profess to be clergymen.
One of this class realised a snug little fortune of 80,000 dollars in his
speculations. He did not want to be known in the matter. Daily he laid
his funds on the broker’s desk. If anything was realised it was taken
quietly away. The broker, tired of doing business on the sly, advised
the customer, if the thing was distasteful to him, or he was ashamed
openly to be in business, he had better retire from Wall Street.” Men of
this class often have a nominal charge. They affect to have some
mission, for which they collect money; they roam about among our
benevolent institutions, visit prisons or penitentiaries—wherever they
can get a chance to talk, to the great disgust of regular missionaries,
and the horror of superintendents. They can be easily known by white
cravats, sanctified looks, and the peculiar unction of their whine. “One
man,” continues the writer in question, “especially illustrates the
gentlemen of the cloth who are familiar with stocks. His name appears in
the Sunday notices as the minister of an up-town church; down town he is
known as a speculator. His place of worship is a little house built in
his yard. It is not as long or as wide as the room in which he writes
his sermons. The pastor is a speculator; his church is his capital, and
on ’Change Rev. pays well. He has controlled and abandoned half-a-dozen
churches. He went over to London, made a written contract with Mr.
Spurgeon, the celebrated preacher, by which the latter was to visit
America. It bound Spurgeon to give a certain number of lectures in the
principal cities of the land. Tickets were to be issued to admit to the
services. One-half of the proceeds Spurgeon was to take with him to
London to build his tabernacle, the other half was to be left in the
hands of the gentleman who brought him over and engineered him through.
The contract, coming to light, produced a great commotion, and Mr.
Spurgeon declined to fulfil it. The war breaking out, this clerical
gentleman tried his hand at a horse contract. He approached a general of
high position, and said he was a poor minister, times were hard, and he
wanted to make a little money; would the general give him a contract?
One was placed in his hands for the purchase of a number of horses. The
minister sold the contract, and made a handsome thing of it; the
government was cheated. A committee of Congress, in looking up frauds in
the city, turned up this contract. In a report to Congress, the general
and the minister were mentioned in no complimentary terms. While these
transactions were going on in New York, the general was in the field
where the battle was the thickest, maintaining the honour of the flag.
The report in which his name was dishonourably mentioned reached him.
His indignation was aroused. He sent a letter to the speculating
preacher, sharp as the point of his sword. He told him if he did not
clear him in every way from all dishonourable connection in the
transaction complained of, he would shoot him in the street as soon as he
returned to New York. The frightened minister made haste to make the
demanded reparation.” Happily for the credit of America, the author
already referred to says, “Such men are held in as light esteem by the
respectable clergy of the city, and by the honourable men of their own
denomination, as they are by the speculators whom they attempt to
imitate.”
What a contrast to such contemptible men was John Jacob Astor, who, at
the age of twenty, left his German home, resolving to seek a fortune in
the New World. He was a poor uneducated boy, and he trudged on foot from
his home to the seaport whence he was to sail. He was educated by his
mother. His school-books were his Bible and Prayer-book, and these he
read and pondered over to the last hour of his life. When he left home,
a small bundle contained all his worldly possessions. He had money
enough, for a common steerage passage—that was all. He landed penniless
on American soil. As he left his native village, he paused and cast a
lingering, loving look behind. As he stood under the linden tree he
said, “I will be honest; I will be industrious; I will never gamble.” He
kept these resolutions till the day of his death. He sailed from London
for America in 1783. In the steerage he made the acquaintance of a
furrier, which was the means of his introduction to a business by which
he made millions. All sorts of stories are circulated about the early
career of Mr. Astor. It was said that he commenced by trading in apples
and pea-nuts. He took with him seven flutes, from his brother’s
manufactory in London; these he sold, and invented the proceeds in furs.
He went steadily to work to learn the trade for himself: he was frugal,
industrious, and early exhibited great tact in trade. He was accustomed
to say, later in life, that the only hard step in making his fortune was
in the accumulation of the first thousand dollars. He possessed marked
executive ability. He was quick in his perceptions. He came rapidly to
his conclusions. He made a bargain, or rejected it at once. In his very
earliest transactions he displayed the same characteristics which marked
him in maturer life. He made distinct contracts, and adhered to them
with inflexible purpose. He founded the American Fur Company, in which
he had shares, and by means of which he amassed a fortune of over 50,000
dollars. His son succeeded in his father’s business, and in his father’s
ability for acquiring money. His habits were very simple, and mode of
life uniform.
Next to Astor, perhaps, in America, we are most familiar with the name of
Commodore Vanderbilt, one of the self-made millionaires of the city of
New York. He began life a penniless boy, and took to the water early.
His first adventure was rowing a boat from Staten Island to the city. He
took command of a North River steamboat when quite young, and was
distinguished at the start for his resolute, indomitable, and daring
will. He began his moneyed success by chartering steamboats, and running
opposition to all the old lines up the North River, up the East River, up
the Connecticut—everywhere. Making a little money, he invested it in
stocks which were available in cash, and always ready for a bargain.
Honourable in trade, prompt, firm, and reliable, he was decided in his
business, and could drive as hard a bargain as any man in the city. His
custom was to conduct his business on cash principles, and never to allow
a Saturday night to close without every man in his employ getting his
money. If anybody was about to fail, wanted money, had a bargain to
offer, he knew where to call. Nothing came amiss—a load of timber, coal,
or cordage, a cargo of a ship, or a stock of goods in a factory,
glass-ware, merchandise, or clothing—the commodore was sure to find a use
for them. A writer, in 1868, thus describes him:—“From nine to eleven
the commodore is in his up-town office; at one in his down-town office.
Between these hours he visits the Harlem and Hudson River stations. He
is now nearly eighty years of age. He it as erect as a warrior; he is
tall, very slim, genteel in his make-up, with a fine presence, hair white
as the driven snow, and comes up to one’s idea of a fine merchant of the
olden time. He is one of the shrewdest merchants, prompt and decided.
In one of the down-town mansions, where the aristocracy used to reside,
he has his place of business. He drives down through Broadway in his
buggy, drawn by his favourite horse, celebrated for his white feet, one
of the fleetest in the city, and which no money can buy. His office
consists of a single room, quite large, well-furnished, and adorned with
pictures of favourite steamers and ferry-boats. The entrance to the
office is through a narrow hall-way, which is made an outer room for his
confidential clerk. He sees personally all who call, rising to greet the
comer, and seldom sits till the business is discharged, and the visitor
gone. But for this he would be overrun and bored to death. His long
connection with steamboats and shipping brings to him men from all parts
of the world who have patents, inventions, and improvements, and who wish
his endorsement. II a man has anything to sell he settles the contract
in a very few words. The visitor addresses the commodore, and says. ‘I
have a stock of goods for sale; what will you give?’ A half-dozen sharp
inquiries are made, and a price named. The seller demurs, announcing
that such a price would ruin him. ‘I don’t want your goods. What did
you come here for if you did not want to sell? If you can get more for
your goods, go and get it.’ Not a moment of time will be lost, not a
cent more be offered; and if the man leaves, with the hope of getting a
better price, and returns to take the first offer, he will probably not
sell the goods at all.”
Turning from steamboats, Mr. Vanderbilt long ago became interested in
railroads. In this line, so great was his success that he could control
the market. “An attempt,” says an American writer, “was made some time
since to break him down by cornering the stock.” He wanted to
consolidate the Harlem Road with the Hudson. Enough of the legislature
was supposed to have been secured to carry the measure. The parties who
had agreed to pass the bill intended to play foul. Besides this, they
thought they would indulge in a little railroad speculation. They sold
Harlem, to be delivered at a future day, right and left. These men let
their friends into the secret, and allowed them to speculate. Clear on
to Chicago, there was hardly a railroad man who was not selling Harlem
short. The expected consolidation ran the stock up; the failure of the
project would, of course, run it down. A few days before the vote was
taken some friends called upon Commodore Vanderbilt, and gave him proof
that a conspiracy existed to ruin him, if possible, in the matter of
consolidation. He took all the funds he could command, and, with the aid
of his friends, bought all the Harlem stock that could be found, and
locked it up safe in his desk. True to the report, the bill was
rejected. The men who had pledged themselves to vote for it, openly and
unblushingly voted against it. They waited anxiously for the next
morning, when they expected their fortunes would be made by the fall of
Harlem. But it did not fall. To the surprise of everybody, the first
day it remained stationary; then it began to rise steadily, to the
consternation and terror of speculators. There was no stock to be had at
any price. Men were ruined on the right hand and on the left. Fortunes
were swept away, and the cry of the wounded was heard up and down the
Central Road. An eminent railway man, near Albany, worth quite a pretty
fortune, who confidently expected to make 50,000 dollars by the
operation, became penniless. One of the sharpest and most successful
operators in New York lost over 200,000 dollars, which he refused to pay
on the ground of conspiracy. His name was immediately stricken from the
Stock board, which brought him to his senses. He subsequently settled,
but thousands were ruined. Vanderbilt, however, made enough money out of
this attempt to ruin him, to pay for all the stock he owned in the Harlem
Road. Not satisfied with his achievements on the land and on the
American rivers, Mr. Vanderbilt resolved to try the ocean. He built a
fine steamer at his own cost, and equipped her completely. The Collins
line was then in its glory. Mr. Collins, with his fine fleet of
steamers, and his subsidy from the government, was greatly elated, and
very imperious. It was quite difficult to approach him. Any day, on the
arrival of a steamer, he could be seen pacing the deck, the crowd falling
back and making space for the head of the important personage. One of
his ships was lost; Vanderbilt applied to Collins to allow his steamer to
take the place vacant on the line for a time; he promised to make no
claim for the subsidy, and to take off his ship as soon as Collins built
one to take her place. Collins refused to do this: he felt afraid if
Vanderbilt got his foot into this ocean business, he would get in his
whole body; if Vanderbilt could run an ocean-steamer without subsidy,
government would require Collins to do it; he saw only mischief any way.
He not only refused, but refused very curtly. In the sharp Doric way
that Vanderbilt had of speaking when he is angry, he told Collins that he
would run his line off the ocean, if it took all of his own fortune and
the years of his life to do it. He commenced his opposition in a manner
that made it irresistible, and a work of short duration. He offered the
government to carry the mails, for a term of years, without a dollar’s
cost to the nation; he offered to bind himself, under the heaviest bonds
the government could exact, to perform this service for a term of years,
more promptly and faithfully than it had been ever done before. His
well-known business tact and energy were conceded. His ability to do
what he said, nobody could deny; his proposition was not only laid before
the members of Congress, but pressed home by a hundred agencies that he
employed. The subsidy was withdrawn; Collins became a bankrupt; his
splendid fleet of steamers, the finest the world had ever seen, were
moored at the wharves, where they laid rotting. Had Collins conceded to
Vanderbilt’s wishes, or divided with him the business on the ocean, the
Collins’ line not only would have been a fact to-day, but would have been
as prosperous as the Cunard line.
When the rebellion broke out, the navy was in a feeble condition; every
ship in the south was pressed into the rebel service. The men-of-war at
Norfolk were burned. At Annapolis they were mutilated and made unfit for
service. The efficient portion of the navy was cruising in foreign seas,
beyond recall. The need of ships of war and gun-boats was painfully
apparent. The steam-ship _Vanderbilt_ was the finest and fleetest vessel
that ever floated in American waters. Her owner fitted her up as a
man-of-war at his own expense, and fully equipped her. He then offered
her for sale to government at a reasonable price. Mr. Vanderbilt found
that there were certain men, standing between the government and the
purchase, who insisted on a profit on every vessel that the government
bought. He refused to pay the black-mail that was exacted of him if his
vessel became the property of the nation. He was told that, unless he
acceded to these demands, he could not sell his ship. Detesting the
conduct of the men, who, pretending to be patriots, were making money out
of the necessities of the nation, he proceeded at once to Washington, and
presented the _Vanderbilt_, with all her equipments, as a free gift to
the nation.
There were few men who attended more closely to business than the late
Mr. Vanderbilt; and, as an American writer remarked of him a few years
before his death, “financially he was ready for the last great change.”
At that time his property was estimated at about thirty millions of
dollars. He was very liberal where he took an interest; but very fitful
in his charities. He often not only subscribed liberally, but compelled
all his friends to do the same. He was prompt, sharp, decisive in his
manner of doing business; he was punctual in his engagements to the
minute; he was very intelligent and well-informed, and, in commercial and
national affairs, had no rival in shrewdness and good judgment. He was
affable, assumed no airs, and was pleasant and genial as a companion; and
when time began to tell on his iron frame, and he began to feel the
decrepitude of age, he was not unmindful of its admonitions, and entered
into no new speculations; for he wished to leave no unfinished business
to his children, amongst whom his large property—the results of
favourable endeavour and successful financial operations—was divided.
In the great cities of America—in such centres as Chicago and New
York—the men who make the most show of wealth, who live in the finest
houses, drive the best horses, give the grandest parties, were many of
them grooms, coachmen, hotel porters, boot-blacks, news-boys, printers’
devils, porters, and coal-heavers, who have risen from the lower walks of
life, and who left their respective homes, a few years ago, with all
their worldly wealth in the crown of their hat, or tied up in a
pocket-handkerchief. They did the hard work of the office, swept out the
stores, made the fires, used the marking-pot, were kicked and cuffed
about, and suffered every hardship. The men who made New York what it
was were men of the old school; they were celebrated for their courtesy
and integrity; they came from the humblest walks of life—from the plough
and anvil, from the lapstone and printing-case, from the farm and quarry.
They worked their way up, as Daniel worked his, from the position of a
slave to Prime Minister of Babylon. Some of them went from their stores
to compete with the ablest statesmen in the world; they were the fathers
and founders of the American nation. These old schoolmen ate not a bit
of idle bread; they were content with their small store and pine-desk;
they owned their own goods, and were their own cashiers, salesmen,
clerks, and porters; they worked sixteen hours a day, and so became
millionaires. They would as soon have committed forgery as be mean and
unjust in trade; they made their wealth in business, and not in
fraudulent failures; they secured their fortunes out of their customers,
and not out of their creditors.—Not so, Young America! An American
writer says:—“He must make a dash. He begins with a brown-stone store,
filled with goods, for which he has paid nothing; marries a dashing
_belle_; delegates all the business that he can to others; lives in
style, and spends his money before he gets it; keeps his fast horse, and
other appendages equally fast; is much at the club-room, and in billiard
or kindred saloons; speaks of his father as ‘the old governor,’ and of
his mother as ‘the old woman;’ and, finally, becomes porter to his clerk,
and lackey to his salesman. Beginning where his father left off, he
leaves off where his father began.”
Let us give a few more American illustrations of the way to wealth,
Boston has the honour of originating the express companies of America.
One morning a man took the East Boston ferry, bound for Salem, over the
Eastern Railroad. He held in his hand a small trunk, trimmed with red
morocco, and fastened with red nails. The trunk contained a few notes
which the person was to collect; a small sum of money he was to pay; and
a few commissions he was to execute. “These,” says an American
newspaper, “were the tangible things in the trunk. Besides these notes,
money, and orders, that little trunk, which a child might have carried,
contained the germ of the express business of the land, whose agencies,
untiring as the sun, are almost as regular.” Alvin Adams—for that is and
was the name of the individual referred to—commenced the express
business, as an experiment, between New York and Boston in 1840. He had
no business, no customers, and no money. He shrewdly saw the coming
greatness of his calling, though for one year it was carried on in the
smallest possible way. He had indomitable energy; his integrity was
without a question; he gained slowly on the confidence of the community,
and closed the year with a future of success before him. In 1854, the
business was transformed into a joint-stock company, and it now stretches
out its arms to all the towns and villages in the land. It is an express
company for merchandise, from a bundle to a ship-load. The amount of
money received and disbursed every day exceeds that of any bank in the
nation. It collects and pays out the smallest sum, and from that to a
large waggon loaded with money, and drawn by three horses. During the
war, the company rendered efficient service to the government: in time of
peril or panic, when the property of the army was abandoned or
sacrificed, it bore away cart-loads of money by its coolness and courage,
and saved millions to the Treasury. The company opened a department
expressly to carry money from the private soldiers to their families.
For a very small sum, funds were taken from the soldier and delivered to
his friends in any part of the land. On several occasions, the transport
department in the army being in utter confusion, application was made to
the Adams’ Express Company for relief.
Jacob Little originated the dashing, daring style of business in stocks,
by which fortunes are made and lost in a single day. In 1817, he came to
New York, and entered the store of Jacob Barker, who was at that time the
shrewdest merchant in the city. In 1822, he opened an office in a small
basement in Wall Street. Caution, self-reliance, integrity, and a
far-sightedness beyond his years, marked his early career. For twelve
years he worked in his little den as few men work. His ambition was to
hold the foremost place in Wall Street. Eighteen hours a day he devoted
to business; twelve hours to his office. His evenings he spent in
visiting retail houses, to purchase uncurrent money; he executed all
orders committed to him with fidelity; he opened a correspondence with
leading bankers in all the principal cities from New York to New Orleans.
For twelve years Mr. Little was at the head of his business; he was the
Great Bear of Wall Street; his mode of business enabled him to accumulate
an enormous fortune; and he held on to his system till it beat him down,
as it had done many a strong man before.
“For more than a quarter of a century,” writes the author of “Sunshine
and Shadow,” in New York, “Mr. Little’s office, in the Old Exchange
Buildings, was the centre of daring gigantic speculations. On ’Change
his tread was that of a king. He could sway and disturb the street when
he pleased. He was rapid and prompt in his dealings, and his purchases
were usually made with great judgment. He had unusual foresight, which,
at times, seemed to amount to defiance. He controlled so large an amount
of stock, that he was called the Napoleon of the Board. When capitalists
regarded railways with distrust, he put himself at the head of the
railroad movement. He comprehended the profit to be derived from their
construction. In this way he rolled up an immense fortune, and was known
everywhere as the railway king. He was the first to discover when the
business was overdone, and immediately changed his course. At the time
the Erie was a favourite stock, and selling at par, Mr. Little threw
himself against the street. He contracted to sell a large amount of this
stock, to be delivered at a future day. His rivals in Wall Street,
anxious to floor him, formed a combination. They took all the contracts
he offered; bought up all the new stock, and placed everything out of Mr.
Little’s reach, making it, as they thought, impossible for him to carry
out his contracts. His ruin seemed inevitable, as his rivals had both
his contracts and his stock. If Mr. Little saw the way out of his
trouble, he kept his own secrets; asked no advice; solicited no
accommodation. The morning dawned when the stock would have to be
delivered, or the Great Bear of Wall Street would have to break. He came
down to his office that morning, self-reliant and calm, as usual. He
said nothing about his business or his prospects. At one o’clock he
entered the office of the Erie Company. He presented certain
certificates of indebtedness which had been issued by the corporation.
By those certificates the company had covenanted to issue stock in
exchange. That stock Mr. Little demanded. Nothing could be done but to
comply. With that stock he met his contract, floored the conspirators,
and triumphed.”
Reverses, so common to all who attempt the treacherous sea of
speculation, at length overtook Mr. Little. Walking from Wall Street
with a friend one day, they passed through Union Square, then the abode
of the wealthiest people of New York. Looking at the rows of elegant
houses, Mr. Little remarked—“I have lost money enough to-day to buy the
whole square. Yes,” he added, “and half the people in it.” Three times
he became bankrupt; and what was then regarded as a colossal fortune,
was, in each instance, swept away. From each failure he recovered, and
paid his debts in full. It was a common remark among the capitalists,
that “Jacob Little’s suspended papers were better than the cheques of
most men.” The whole man inspired confidence. He was retiring in his
manner, and quite diffident, except in business. He was generous as a
creditor. If a man could not meet his contracts, and Mr. Little was
satisfied that he was honest, he never pressed him. After his first
suspension, though legally free, he paid every creditor in full, though
it took nearly a million of dollars. His charities were large and
unostentatious. The Southern rebellion, alas! swept away his remaining
fortune, and he died poor and resigned in the bosom of his family. His
last words were—“I am going up. Who will go with me?”
We must not omit a name from this chapter, well known all the world
over—that of James Bennett, the founder of what is still a power, the
_New York Herald_. Scotland was the birth-place of Bennett. He was
reared under the shadow of Gordon Castle. His parents were Roman
Catholics, and he was trained in their religion. Every Saturday night
the family assembled for religious service. James was kept at school
till he was fifteen years of age, and he then entered a Roman Catholic
seminary at Aberdeen, his parents intending him for the ministry. He
pursued his studies, on the banks of the Dee, for three years, and then
threw up his studies, and abandoned his collegiate career. The memoirs
of Benjamin Franklin impressed him greatly, and he felt an earnest desire
to visit America, and the home of Franklin, and he landed there in 1819.
At Portland he opened a school as teacher, and thence he moved to Boston.
He was charmed with all he saw in the city and vicinity; he hunted up
every memorial of Franklin that could be found; he examined all the
relics of the Revolution, and visited the places made memorable in the
struggle with Great Britain; but he was poor, and well-nigh discouraged.
He walked the common, without money, hungry, and without friends. In his
darkest hour he found a New York shilling, and from that hour his fortune
began to mend. He obtained a position at Boston as proof reader, and
displayed his ability as a writer, both in prose and verse. In 1822, he
came to New York, and immediately connected himself with the press, for
which he had a decided taste. He was not dainty in his work; he took
everything that was offered him. He was industrious, sober, frugal, of
great tact, and displayed marked ability. He soon obtained a position on
the _Charleston Courier_ as translator of Spanish-American papers. He
prepared other articles for the _Courier_, many of which were in verse.
His style was sharp, racy, and energetic. In 1825, he became proprietor
of the _New York Courier_ by purchase. It was a Sunday paper; but not a
success. In 1826, he became associate editor of the _National Advocate_,
a democratic paper. Leaving that, he became associate editor of the
_Inquirer_, conducted by Mr. Noah; he was also a member of the Tammany
Society, and a warm partisan. During the session of Congress, Mr.
Bennett was at the capital writing for his paper; and while at that post,
a fusion was effected between the _Courier_ and the _Inquirer_. Again,
he had to leave the paper on account of a difference between him and the
editor as regarded the bank. At this time he turned his attention to the
New York press, which was then seriously behind the age. He felt that it
was not what was demanded, and resolved to establish a paper that should
realise his idea of a metropolitan journal. He had no capital; no rich
friends to back him; nothing but his pluck, ability, and indomitable
resolution. On the 6th of May, 1835, the _New York Herald_ made its
appearance. It was a small penny paper. Mr. Bennett was editor,
reporter, and correspondent; he collected the city news, and wrote the
money articles; he resolved to make the financial feature of his paper a
marked one; he owed nothing to the Stock Board. If he was poor, he was
not in debt; he did not dabble in stocks; he had no interest in the bulls
and bears; he could pitch into the bankers and stock-jobbers as he
pleased, as he had no interest one way or the other. He worked hard, he
rose early, was temperate and frugal, and seemed to live only for his
paper. He was his own compositor and errand-boy; collected his own news,
mailed his papers, kept his accounts, and he grew rich. His marble
palace was the most complete newspaper establishment in the world.
Before the _Herald_ buildings were completed, and while he was making a
savage attack on the national banks, he was waited upon by the president
of one of them, who said to him—“Mr. Bennett, we know that you are at
great expense in erecting this building, besides carrying on this immense
business. If you want any accommodation, you can have it at our bank.”
Mr. Bennett replied—“Before I purchased the land, or began to build, I
had, on deposit, 250,000 dollars in the Chemical Bank. There is not a
dollar due on the _Herald_ buildings that I cannot pay. I would pay off
the mortgage to-morrow if the mortgagee would allow me to. When the
building is open, I shall not owe a dollar to any man if I am allowed to
pay. I owe nothing that I cannot discharge in an hour. I have not
touched one dollar of the money on deposit in the bank; and while that
remains I need no accommodation.” One secret of his success is soon
told—“He can command the best talent in the world for his paper. He pays
liberally for fresh news, of which he has the exclusive use. If a pilot
runs a steamer hard, or an engineer puts extra speed on his locomotive,
they know that they will be well paid for it at the _Herald_ office, for
its owner does not higgle about the price. When news of the loss of
Collins’ steamer was brought to the city, late on a Saturday night, the
messenger came direct to the _Herald_ office. The price demanded was
paid; but the messenger was feasted and confined in the building until
the city was flooded with extra Sunday morning copies. The _attachés_ of
the _Herald_ are found in every part of the civilised world; they take
their way where heroes fear to travel. If in anything they are outdone,
outrun, outwritten, if earlier and fresher news is allowed to appear, a
sharp, pungent letter is written, either discharging the writer, or
sending him home. During the war, the _Herald_ establishment at
Washington was a curiosity. The place was as busy as the War Department.
Foaming horses came in from all quarters, ridden by bespattered
letter-carriers. Saddled horses were tied in front of the door like the
head-quarters of a general. The wires were controlled to convey the
latest news from every section to the last moment of the paper going to
press. Mr. Bennett is a fine illustration (this was written, of course,
in his lifetime) of what America can do for a penniless boy, and what a
penniless boy can do for himself, if he has talent, pluck, character, and
industry. In the conflict of interest, and in the heat of rivalry, it is
difficult to estimate a man rightly. In coming times, Mr. Bennett will
take his place in that galaxy of noble names who have achieved their own
position, been architects of their own fortune, and left an enduring mark
upon the age in which they lived.”
Horace Greeley had an origin as humble, and a fight as hard as Mr.
Bennett. He was born in New Hampshire, and, from his earliest years, was
fond of study. The father had to move to a new settlement; and here, as
little was to be done at home, after breakfast the home was left to take
care of itself; away went the family—father, mother, boys, girls, and
oxen—to work together. In early life the lad gave proof that the Yankee
element was strong in him. In the first place, he was always doing
something—and he had always something to sell. He saved nuts, and
exchanged them, at the store, for the articles he wanted to purchase; he
would hack away, hours at a time, at a pitch-pine stump, the roots of
which are as inflammable as pitch itself, and, tying up the roots in
little bundles, and the little bundles into one large one, he would take
the load to the store, and sell it for firewood. His favourite out-door
sport, too, at Westhaven, was bee-hunting, which is not only an agreeable
and exciting pastime, but occasionally rewards the hunter with a
prodigious mass of honey: as much as 150lbs. have frequently been
obtained from a single tree. This was profitable sport, and Horace liked
it amazingly; his share of the honey generally found its way to the
store. By these, and other expedients, the boy always managed to have a
little money. When he started, as an apprentice, to learn the
printing-trade, he packed up his wardrobe in a small
pocket-handkerchief—and, small as it was, it would have held more—for the
proprietor had never more than two shirts and one change of clothing at
the same time, till he was of age. “If ever there was a self-made man,”
wrote an old friend, “this same Horace Greeley is one; for he had neither
wealthy nor influential friends, collegiate or academic education, or
anything to aid him in the world, save his own natural good sense, an
unconquerable love of study, and a determination to win his way by his
own efforts. He had, moreover, a natural aptitude for arithmetical
calculation, and could easily surpass, in his boyhood, most persons of
his age in the facility and accuracy of his demonstrations and his
knowledge of grammar. He early learned to observe and remember political
statistics, and the leading men and measures of the political parties;
the various and multitudinous candidates for governor and Congress, not
only in a single State, but in many; and, finally, in all the States;
together with the taxation of, and vote of this and that, and the other
Congressional districts (why democrat and what not), at all manner of
elections. These things he rapidly and easily mastered, and treasured in
his capacious memory, till, we venture to say, he has few, if any, equals
at this time, in this particular department, in this or any other
country.” After Greeley had served his apprenticeship, he came to New
York, with ten dollars in his pocket, a bundle on his back, and a stick.
It was hard work for him to find a job; but, at length, he was taken into
a newspaper-office. After a time he joined in a speculation which was to
give New York a penny paper; and, in conjunction with his partner, Mr.
Story, went on printing after the paper in question had ceased to exist.
He then started the _New Yorker_, having, in the meanwhile, abandoned the
use of stimulants, and become a vegetarian. After more or less editorial
work, more or less profitable, Greeley started the _New York Tribune_,
which, from the first, was a success.
Another of New York’s leading men was Daniel Drew. His father died when
he was fifteen years of age, and he came to New York to seek his fortune.
Resolved to do something, and having nothing better to do, he became a
soldier as a substitute for another. Then he took to stock-keeping, and
droves of over 2,000 cattle crossed the Alleghanies under his direction.
In 1834, he began the steam-boat enterprise. In 1836, he appeared in
Wall Street. For eleven years his firm was very celebrated. Mr. Drew
was a rapid, bold, and successful operator. His connection with the Erie
Railroad, guaranteeing the paper of that company to the amount of a
million and a-half of dollars, showed the magnitude of his transactions.
In 1857, as treasurer of the company, his own paper, endorsed by
Vanderbilt to the amount of a million and a-half of dollars saved the
Erie from bankruptcy. During that year, amidst universal ruin, Mr.
Drew’s losses were immense; but he never flinched, met his paper
promptly, and said that, during all that crisis, he had not lost one
hour’s sleep. In conjunction with Vanderbilt, he relieved the Harlem
Road from its floating debt, and replaced it in a prosperous condition.
“It would be unpardonable to forget the great Barnum,” says a New York
writer, “one of our most remarkable men. He lives among the millionaires
in a costly brown-stone house in Fifth Avenue, corner of Thirty-ninth
Street, and is a millionaire himself. He has retired from the details of
actual life, though he has the controlling interest of the Barnum and Van
Amburgh Museum. He has made and lost several fortunes; but, in the
evening of life, he is in possession of wealth, which he expends with
great liberality and a genial hospitality. He was born at Bethel,
Connecticut, and was trained in a village tavern kept by his father. He
had a hopeful buoyant disposition, and was distinguished by his
irrepressible love of fun. At the age of fifteen he began life for
himself, and married when he was nineteen. As editor of the _Herald of
Freedom_, he obtained an American notoriety. The paper was distinguished
for its pith and vigour. Owing to sharp comments on officials, Mr.
Barnum was shut up in gaol. On the day of his liberation his friends
assembled in great force, with carriages, bands of music, and flags, and
carried him home. His first appearance as an exhibitor was in connection
with an old negress, Joyce Heth, the reputed nurse of Washington. His
next attempt was to obtain possession of Scudder’s American Museum.
Barnum had not five dollars in the world, nor did he pay any down. The
concern was little better than a corpse ready for burial, yet he bound
himself down by terms fearfully stringent, and met all the conditions as
they matured. He secured the person of Charles S. Stretton, the
celebrated dwarf, and exhibited him. He also secured the services of
Jenny land, binding himself to pay her 1,000 dollars a-night for 150
nights, assuming all expenses of every kind. The contract proved an
immense pecuniary success. From the days of Joyce Heth, to the present
time, Mr. Barnum has always had some speciality connected with his show,
which the world pronounces humbug; and Mr. Barnum does not deny that they
are so. Among these are the Woolly Horse, the Buffalo Hunt, the
Ploughing Elephant, the Segal Mermaid, the What-is-it, and the Gorilla.
But Mr. Barnum claims that, while these special features may not be all
that the public expect, every visitor to the exhibition gets the worth of
his money ten times over; that his million curiosities and monstrosities,
giants, and dwarfs, his menagerie and dramatic entertainments, present a
diversified and immense amount of entertainment that cannot be secured
anywhere else. A large or red baboon, upon a recent occasion, was
exhibited at the Museum. It was advertised as a living gorilla, the only
one ever exhibited in America. Mr. Barnum’s agents succeeded in
hoodwinking the press to such a degree, that the respectable dailies
described the ferocity of this formidable gorilla, whose rage was
represented to be so intense, and his strength so fearful, that he was
very near tearing to pieces the persons who had brought him from the ship
to the Museum. Barnum had not seen the animal; and when he read the
account in the _Post_, he was very much excited, and sent immediately to
the men to be careful that no one was harmed. The baboon was about as
furious as a small-sized kitten. The story did its work, and crowds came
to see the wonderful beast. Among others a professor came from the
Smithsonian Institute; he examined the animal, and then desired to see
Mr. Barnum. He informed the proprietor that he had read the wonderful
accounts of the gorilla, and had come to see him. ‘He is a very fine
specimen of the baboon,’ said the professor; ‘but he is no gorilla.’
‘What’s the reason that he is not a gorilla?’ said Barnum. The professor
replied, that ‘ordinary gorillas had no tails.’ ‘I own,’ said the
showman, ‘that ordinary gorillas have no tails; but mine has, and that
makes the specimen the more remarkable.’ The audacity of the reply
completely overwhelmed the professor, and he retired, leaving Mr. Barnum
in possession of the field. Mr. Barnum’s rule has been to give all who
patronise him the worth of their money, without being particular as to
the means by which he attracts the crowds to his exhibitions. His aim
has been notoriety. He offered the Atlantic Telegraph Company 5,000
dollars for the privilege of first sending twenty words over the wires.
It has not been all sunshine with Mr. Barnum. His imposing villa at
Bridgeport was burned to the ground. Anxious to build up East
Bridgeport, he became responsible to a manufacturing company, and his
fortune was swept away in an hour; but with wonderful sagacity he
relieved himself. As a business man, he has singular executive force,
and great capacity. Men who regard Mr. Barnum as a charlatan, who
attribute his success to what he calls humbug, clap-trap, exaggerated
pictures, and puffing advertisements, will find that the secret of his
success did not lie in that direction. Under all his eccentricity, there
was a business energy, tact, perseverance, shrewdness, and industry,
without which, all his humbugging would have been exerted in vain. From
distributing Sear’s Bible, he became lessee of the Vauxhall Saloon;
thence a writer of advertisements for an amphitheatre at four dollars
a-week; then negotiating, without a dollar, for the Museum, which was
utterly worthless; outwitting a corporation who intended to outwit him on
the purchase of the Museum over his head; exhibiting a manufactured
mermaid which he had bought of a Boston showman; palming off Tom Thumb as
eleven years of age when he was but five; showing his woolly horse, and
exhibiting his wild buffaloes at Holcken—these, and other small things
that Barnum did, are known to the public; but there are other things
which the public did not know. Barnum was thoroughly honest, and he kept
his business engagements to the letter. He adopted the most rigid
economy. Finding a hearty coadjutor in his wife, he put his family on a
short allowance, and shared himself in the economy of the household. Six
hundred dollars a-year he allowed for the expenses of his family, and his
wife resolutely resolved to reduce that sum to 400 dollars. Six months
after the purchase of the Museum, the owner came into the ticket-office
at noon; Barnum was eating his frugal dinner, which was spread before
him. ‘Is this the way you eat your dinner?’ the proprietor inquired.
Barnum said, ‘I have not eaten a warm dinner since I bought the Museum,
except on the Sabbath, and I intend never to eat another on a week-day
till I am out of debt.’ ‘Ah, you are safe, and will pay for the Museum
before the year is out,’ replied the owner. In less than a year the
Museum was paid for out of the profits of the establishment.”
There are no better rules for business success than those laid down by
Mr. Barnum, and which have guided his course. Among them are
these—“Select the kind of business suited to your temperament and
inclination; let your pledged word ever be sacred; whatever you do, do
with all your might; use no description of intoxicating drinks; let hope
predominate, but do not be visionary; pursue one thing at a time; do not
scatter your powers; engage proper assistance; live within your income,
if you almost starve; depend upon yourself, and not upon others.”
Perhaps one of the men who made most money by advertising, was Mr.
Barnes, the proprietor of the _New York Ledger_. The manner was entirely
his own. When he startled the public by taking columns of a daily
journal, or one entire side, he secured the end he had in view. His
method of repeating three or four lines—such as, “JENNY JONES writes only
for the _Ledger_!” or “Read Mrs. SOUTHWORT’S new story in the
_Ledger_!”—and this repeated over and over again, till men turned from it
in disgust, and did not conceal their ill-temper—was a system of itself.
“What is the use,” said a man to Mr. Barnes, “of your taking the whole
side of the _Herald_, and repeating that statement a thousand times?”
“Would you have asked me that question,” replied Mr. Barnes, “if I had
inserted it but once? I put it in to attract your attention, and to make
you ask that question.” This mode of advertising was new, and it excited
both astonishment and ridicule. His ruin was predicted over and over
again; and when he had thus amassed a fine fortune, it was felt that the
position he had secured was the one he aimed at when he was a mere
printer’s lad. He sought for no short paths to success; he mastered his
trade as a printer patiently and perfectly; he earned his money before he
spent it; in New York he was preferred because he did his work better
than others; he was truthful, sober, honest, and industrious; if he took
a job, he finished it at the time and in the manner agreed upon. He
borrowed no money, incurred no debts, and suffered no embarrassments. He
was born in the north of Ireland, not far from Londonderry, and was true
to the Scotch Presbyterian blood in his veins.
I now come to the most illustrious name, as regards money-getters, either
in England or America. Mr. George Peabody was something more than a
money-hunter, and, in the history of money-making men, deserves the post
of honour for his philanthropy. He was born in Massachusetts, and was,
essentially, a self-taught and self-made man. After he had learnt, in
the district school, how to read and write, having been four years in a
grocer’s score, and having spent another year with his grandfather in
rustic life in Vermont, he went to join his brother David, who had set up
a drapery or dry-goods store at Newburyport. This was stopped, a few
months after, by a fire, which destroyed Peabody’s shop and most of the
other houses in the town. Fortunately, at this juncture, an uncle, who
had settled in George Town, in the district of Columbia, invited young
George to become his commercial assistant; and he stayed with him a
couple of years, managing the most part of the business. In May, 1812,
during the unhappy war between Great Britain and America, when a British
fleet came up the Potomac, this young merchant’s clerk, with others of
his time, volunteered into the patriot army, and served a few months in
the defence of Port Warburton, as a true citizen soldier. The short war
being over, his proved skill and diligence brought him the offer of a
partnership in a new concern—it was that of Elisha Riggs, who was about
to commence the sale of dry goods throughout the middle States of the
Union. Riggs found the capital, while Peabody did the work, and the firm
at once achieved immense success. Peabody acted as bagsman, and often
travelled alone, on horseback, through the western wilds of New York and
Pennsylvania, or the plantations of Maryland and Virginia, if not
farther, lodging with farmers or gentlemen slave-owners, and so becoming
acquainted with every class of people, and every way of living: indeed,
so fast did the Southern connection increase, that the house was removed
to Baltimore, though its branches were established, seven years later, at
Philadelphia and New York. About the year 1830, Mr. Riggs having retired
from business, Mr. Peabody found himself at the head of one of the
largest mercantile firms in the home-trade of America. But Mr. Peabody
had also, by this time, distinguished himself as a man of superior
integrity, discretion, and public spirit. “He coveted no political
office; he courted the votes of no party; he waited upon no caucus; put
his foot down,” says the writer of the account of his life in the “Annual
Register,” “upon no platform; but held aloof from the strife of American
factions.” His first visit to London was in 1827, whole he was still
chief partner in the Baltimore firm. In 1843, he fixed himself here, as
merchant and money-broker, with others, by the style of “George Peabody
and Co., of Warnford Court, City.” As one of the three commissioners
appointed by the State of Maryland to obtain means for restoring its
credit, he refused to be paid for his services; but the State could not
do less than vote him their special thanks. To the last he retained his
fondness for his native land, and used to celebrate the anniversary of
American Independence, on the 4th of July, with a kind of public dinner
at the Crystal Palace.
It is as a magnificent giver as well as getter of money that Mr. Peabody
has become famous. He knew perfectly well what he was about. He had
seen as much of the world as most elderly men of business accustomed to
society and travel, and he had come to the conclusion that a man was not
made happy by fine houses, and grand equipages, and stately parks, and
galleries filled with the choicest productions of art in ancient or
modern times, or by the social status which assuredly the possession of
money gives. None of these things, he found, made a man happy; though if
he had them, and were deprived of them, the loss would make him truly
unhappy indeed. Mr. Peabody thought he knew a surer way to the
possession of happiness; and that was, by dedicating the wealth he had
honourably acquired, to the promotion of the well-being of his less
fortunate fellow-men.
Some of his first acts of pecuniary munificence, as was to be expected,
had an American bearing. At the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851, he
promptly supplied the sum needed to pay for the arrangements of the
United States contributions. In the following year he joined Mr. Henry
Grinnell, of New York, shipowner, in fitting out the expedition to the
Arctic Sea in search of Sir John Franklin. In the same year he bestowed
a large donation, since augmented to £100,000, to found a free library
and educational institute at Danvers, his native place. In 1857, he
revisited his native land, after an absence of twenty years. On this
occasion he gave £100,000 to form, at Baltimore, a noble institute
devoted to science and art, in conjunction with a free public library.
The corner-stone of this building was laid in 1858, and the structure was
then completed; but its opening was delayed by the civil war which at
that time prevailed. It was not till after the conclusion of the war
that it was finally dedicated to the purposes for which it was founded.
Mr. Peabody afterwards gave a second £100,000 to the institute.
In 1862, Mr. Peabody made the magnificent donation of £150,000 for the
amelioration of the condition of the poor of London, and the trustees,
who were men of mark and position, immediately employed the money in
accordance with the noble donor’s wishes, in the erection of model
dwellings for working-men. In 1866, he added another £100,000 to the
fund; and in 1868, he made a further donation of about fifteen acres of
land at Brixton, 5,642 shares in the Hudson’s Bay Company, and £5,405 in
cash (altogether another £100,000); thus making the value of his gifts to
the poor of London as much as £350,000. By the last will and testament
of Mr. Peabody, opened on the day of his funeral, his executors, Sir
Curtis Sampson and Sir Charles Reed, were directed to apply a further sum
of £150,000 to the Peabody Fund, thus making a sum of half a million
sterling so employed.
This extraordinary beneficence, on the part of a private citizen, was
acknowledged in Great Britain. The freedom of the City of London was
conferred on Mr. Peabody by the corporation. The Queen, not content with
offering him either a baronetcy or the Grand Cross of the Bath, which he
respectfully declined, wrote him a grateful letter, and invited him to
visit her at Windsor. In 1866, just before his second visit to his
native country, he received from her the gift of a beautiful miniature
portrait of herself, framed in the most costly style, which he deposited
in the Peabody Institute at Danvers. The last token of public honour
which was rendered to Mr. Peabody before his death, was the uncovering,
by the Prince of Wales, of Storey’s fine bronze statue of himself behind
the Royal Exchange.
Mr. Peabody remained in his native land three years, during which time he
largely increased the amount of his donations, and founded more than one
or two important institutions. He gave 2,000,000 dollars for the
education of the blacks and whites in the South; 300,000 dollars for
museums of American relics at Yale and Harvard Colleges; 50,000 dollars
for a free museum at Salem; 25,000 dollars to Bishop McIlxame for Kenyon
College; and presented a sum of 230,000 dollars to the State of Maryland.
He also expended 100,000 dollars on a memorial church to his mother, and
distributed among the members of his family 2,000,000 dollars. In
recognition of his many large gifts to public institutions in America,
Mr. Peabody received, in March 1867, a special vote of thanks from the
United States. He died in London, at the house of his friend, Six Curtis
Sampson, at Eaton Square, in the seventy-filth year of his age. The
funeral took place in Westminster Abbey though, in accordance with the
wishes of the deceased, the body was afterwards conveyed to America. The
coffin-lid bore the following inscription:—
GEORGE PEABODY,
Born at Danvers, Massachusetts, February 18th, 1795;
Died in London, England, November 4th, 1869.
The remains were taken over to America in her Majesty’s turret-ship,
the _Monarch_.
The late Mr. A. T. Stewart, dry-goods merchant of New York, has left a
curious monument of his administrative skill in the great Working Women’s
Hotel, recently completed in that city. As a large employer of labour,
male as well as female, Mr. Stewart became impressed with the difficulty
that working-folk have in finding lodgings even in comparatively new
cities. In swiftly-growing New York, the constantly increasing demand
for business premises has pushed the population higher and higher up the
island, until one fashionable street after another has been converted
into stores and offices, and people fairly well off have built themselves
handsome dwellings further afield. This has been by no means an
unprofitable change for house-owners; for the compensation received for a
house “down town,” more than suffices to build and furnish a handsome
dwelling in that part of the city still devoted to private residences;
but to the poorer classes of inhabitants, rapid change and development of
this kind have been not a little oppressive. Far more swiftly and
suddenly than in London, the working-people have found themselves thrust
from the space previously occupied by them, but grown too valuable to be
covered by their humble homes. Like their brethren in London, they have
either retired to the suburbs and find a tiresome morning and evening
journey added to the miseries of life, or have taken refuge in large
houses let out in tenements and built expressly for the accommodation of
artisan families. Both English and American experiments in this latter
direction have been very successful. Practice has taught the proper
principle of constructing large tenement houses as well as artisans’ and
labourers’ cottages, and the working family is probably not less
commodiously, and is certainly more healthily, lodged than it has been at
any preceding period. The single man, too, is cared for; but the single
woman has hitherto been under certain disadvantages. It is obvious that
a house almost always contains more space than she wants, and costs more
money than she can afford; and it is equally clear that in cooking her
own meals separately she is wasting time, food, and fuel. Some of these
objections might, perhaps, be got over by four or five women clubbing
together; but their general feeling has never been strongly manifested in
favour of divided rule or responsibility. It is subjecting human nature
to a severe test to ask people to “room together,” as it is called in
America, the ordinary result being that the temporary “chums” never speak
again to each other for the rest of their lives. It was to obviate this
strain on human sympathy that Mr. Stewart projected the Working Women’s
Hotel, the completion of which he did not live to see.
“Judging from the prices charged,” says a writer in the _Daily News_,
“and the regulations enforced, the working women for whom the great hotel
at New York has been constructed, are of a class somewhat above that of
the factory or work-girl proper. Seven dollars a-week for board and a
separate room, or six dollars a-head if two persons occupy the same room,
is a price that would absorb an ordinary workwoman’s entire earnings.
When it is recollected that the value of a paper dollar is now within a
fraction of that of a gold one, and that wages and other things have
fallen in price with the contraction of the currency since the civil war,
it is not easy to see from what class of actual workwomen the hotel is to
draw its customers. Women working at trades clearly cannot aspire to the
comforts provided for seven dollars a-week, and it is doubtful whether
those in a position to pay that sum will submit to the restrictions
imposed upon boarders. For the sum asked they can, at the present
moment, obtain board easily elsewhere, and enjoy perfect liberty. It is
very likely that the food and accommodation provided at the hotel are
much superior to those offered at the smaller boarding-houses with which
the outer edges of New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey City are thickly
studded; but mere eating and sleeping seem to be regarded by women, in
America at least, in a far less serious light than by men. The code of
regulations at the Working Women’s Hotel affords an amusing instance of
the severity which comes over the American when called to the lofty and
important position of keeping an hotel. In other walks of life he is
easy and good-natured, but when impelled by destiny to ‘run’ an hotel, he
undergoes a sudden transformation into a despot. The guests at the new
hotel are informed that eight large parlours have been provided for the
reception of visitors, who will not be allowed in other rooms or parlours
except by express permission of the manager. The eight parlours
specified correspond, in fact, to the strangers’ rooms at a club. It is
furthermore provided that no visiting to a room will be allowed except by
consent of all the occupants; that no washing of clothes will be
permitted in the rooms, and that no sewing-machines or working apparatus
shall be brought into them. This last regulation may appear severe, but
it is probably intended to protect those who do not sew from annoyance.
A sewing-machine is an unpleasant neighbour, it is true; but so is a
rocking-chair; yet it may be doubted whether even the despot who reigns
over this last new ‘institution’ will prove equal to the task of tabooing
that pestilent article of furniture. Animals will be rigidly excluded.
No dogs, cats, birds, or other pet creatures will be suffered; meals will
be served at fixed hours; the gas will be turned off and the hotel closed
at half-past eleven. Whether this code will be submitted to by American
working-women capable of paying from 24_s._ to 28_s._ weekly for board
and lodging remains to be seen. The upper lady-clerk in a store is, as a
rule, gifted with great strength of character, and as a fairly educated,
self-reliant, and hardworking member of society, is perfectly entitled to
display her sense of independence. She will be quick to perceive the
advantages offered by the new hotel, but it is at least probable that she
will be equally quick to resent the restrictions which it is sought to
impose upon her sovereign will and pleasure.”
A poor rich man, not long since, died at Cincinnati, leaving property
worth considerably more than half a million sterling. He lived up an
alley in one small room, dressed in rags, and looked like a penniless
tramp, and yet he owned more than 100,000 acres of land. Another citizen
of Cincinnati also offered to present to the city his valuable
art-collection, worth £40,000, on condition that a fire-proof building
should be erected in which to store it.
It is said that Peter Cooper, of New York, who has now (1878) entered his
eighty-eighth year, is worth £2,000,000. He began life as a coachmaker’s
apprentice; but having invented a superior kind of glue, which came into
general use, he rapidly made an immense fortune.
The last illustration of getting on in America may be found in the case
of Carl Schurz, now (1878) one of the Secretaries of State in America.
The history of Carl Schurz reads like a romance, for the wandering
Ulysses himself, restricted to narrower limits by the imperfect
geographical knowledge of his day, never had a tenth part of his modern
imitator’s advantages in “observant straying” over different lands, and
amidst diverse languages, nor “noting the manners and their climes” of
widely separated races. Born near Cologne in 1829, and educated first at
its gymnasium, and subsequently at the University of Bonn, Carl Schurz
enjoyed superior educational advantages, by which, naturally studious, he
greatly profited. When but nineteen years of age, under the influence of
his professor, Kinkel, he became a Revolutionist in his sentiments; and
in the year 1848, memorable for the revolutionary tide that swept over
Europe, established, in conjunction with his professor, a journal to
advocate those principles. Of this journal he was for a time sole
editor. When, in, the spring of 1849, the abortive insurrectionary
effort was made at Bonn, in which both he and the professor took a part,
they fled together to the Palatinate. Here our young student joined the
revolutionary army as adjutant, and aided in the defence of Rastadt
against the government troops. On the surrender of that place he escaped
to Switzerland, but soon returned to deliver his friend Professor Kinkel
from the fortress of Spandau. In this effort he was successful. In
1851, we find the young revolutionist at Paris, as correspondent of
German journals, and a little later at London, for a year giving lessons
in German. But the exile wearied of Europe, and his fancy drove him to
America, where he arrived ignorant of the language, and, it is to be
presumed, short of cash. But he proceeded to grapple resolutely with
both difficulties. Three years he spent in the quiet Quaker city of
Philadelphia, teaching, and learning, and writing—for there is a large
German population In Pennsylvania. Then he drifted westwards; first to
Wisconsin, where he commenced his career as a political partisan making
speeches in German, during the presidential canvass of 1856, on the
Republican side. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the
lieutenant-governorship of Wisconsin that year—fast work for one but four
years in the country. The first public speech he delivered in the
English language was in 1858, about which time he commenced the practice
of law. In 1859, he made a lecture tour through the New England States,
speaking English, as I have been informed by an auditor, very
imperfectly. Now he speaks the language with perfect purity, and a
scarcely perceptible accent. In 1860, he was an influential member of
the National Republican Convention, and one of the chief speakers during
the canvass that resulted in the election of Lincoln to the presidency.
Appointed by Mr. Lincoln minister to Spain, he soon resigned that office
to return home and take part in the civil war—the Germans forming a large
portion of the military contingent in the Federal army, the great bulk of
the German immigration having settled in the North and North-western
States; very few indeed at the South. It was a curious sequel to a
revolutionary career at home that Mr. Schurz should have been so soon
engaged in suppressing a rebellion in his adopted country. He rose to
the rank of major-general in the Federal service, and took part in the
battle of the second Bull Run, and where Stonewall Jackson defeated the
Federals at Chancellorsville. He was also at Chattanooga and Gettysburg
fights. At the close of the war he returned to the practice of the law,
and connected himself with the newspaper press in different parts of the
country as a Washington correspondent.
When, in 1866, after the assassination of President Lincoln, Andrew
Johnson was acting President of the United States, he appointed Carl
Schurz as special commissioner to visit and report on the actual
condition of the southern country, then under process of reconstruction.
On his return from this mission our German Ulysses migrated to Detroit in
Michigan, where he founded a newspaper. The ensuing year he moved again
to the city of St. Louis, in Missouri, where he founded a German
newspaper, took an active part for General Grant in both languages in
1868, and in 1869 was elected United States senator for six years’ term
from Missouri. Disagreeing with General Grant’s policy and mode of
conducting public affairs, Mr. Schurz passed over to the Opposition to
his administration, and, in conjunction with Horace Greeley—like himself
an Abolitionist and Republican—sought to establish a reform party of
Liberal Republicans, as opposed to the Spoils party of Grant. Mr. Schurz
was the presiding officer in the Cincinnati Republican Convention, which
nominated Horace Greeley for the presidency, and since then his career
has been one of unmitigated success.
In the new States, as well as in the old, these American money-makers
flourish. As I write, I hear that Mark Hopkins, the great Californian
railway millionaire, has died with upwards of £3,000,000, and his will
cannot be found. In the absence of a will his widow takes two-thirds of
the fortune, and his two brothers the remainder. Money-making, it may be
said, is the chief characteristic of Brother Jonathan and his numerous
and pushing tribe.