If you only try to make it by easy means—that is by betting, say, on a football match or a horse-race—you are bound to lose after a time. Nobody who makes bets ever wins in the end; it is the book-maker, the man who receives the bets, that scores over it. Yet there are thousands of fools who go on putting their money on because they won a bit once or hope to win some day.
Any number of poor boys have become rich men—but in nearly every case it was because they meant to do so from the first; they worked for it, and put every penny they could make into the bank to begin with.
So each one of you has the chance if you like to take it. The great owner of millions of pounds, J. Astor, began his career as a poor boy-pedlar with seven German flutes as his stock-in-trade. He sold them for more than he gave and went on increasing his business.
The knights of old were ordered by their rules to be thrifty, that is to save money as much as possible, not to expend large sums on their own enjoyment, but to save it in order that they might keep themselves and not be a burden to others, and also in order that they might have more to give away in charity; and if they had no money of their own, they were not allowed to beg for it, they must work and make it in one way or another. Thus money-making goes with manliness, hard work, and sobriety.
Boys are not too young to work for money.
Mr Thomas Holmes, the police-court missionary, tells us how hundreds of poor boys in London are working pluckily and well at making their living, even while doing their school work. They get up early, at half-past four in the morning, and go round with milk or bakers' barrows till about eight, and after that off to school; back in the afternoon to the shop to clean the pails and cans. They save up their money every day; those who have mothers, hand it over to them; those who have not, store it up or bank it. They are regular men before they are twelve years of age, and good examples to other boys wherever they may be.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY.
There are many ways by which a scout, or a patrol working together, can make money, such as:
Carpentering.—Making arm-chairs, recovering old furniture, etc., is a very paying trade. Fretwork and carving, picture-frames, birdcages, cabinets, carved pipe-bowls, can be sold through a shop.
Get permission to cut certain sticks in hedges or woods and trim them into walking-sticks, after hanging them with weights attached to straighten and dry them. Breeding canaries, chickens, rabbits, or dogs pays well. Beekeeping brings in from £1 to £2 a year per hive, after you have paid for hive and queen bee or swarm.