CHAPTER XII.
REFLECTIONS ON MONEY-MAKING.
We have little faith in reflections. If a man cannot draw an inference for himself, it is little use anyone attempting to draw it for him. The reader of the preceding pages must have been taught, by example, how to get money. The art of money-making is a very simple one. If your income is twenty pounds, and you spend nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings, and elevenpence-three-farthings, you will never be troubled about money matters; and, in the course of years, may have a fortune commensurate with so modest an expenditure. Having thus acquired a small amount of capital, you must not part with it to mining-brokers or stock-brokers, however plausible the tale they tell, and however friendly you may be with them. They are bound to do business, and for the sake of that, will help their nearest friend to an investment of the rottenest character. Stock-brokers may have a sense of honour—may be gentlemen; but I question much whether a money-broker has any feeling for his clients, I have known little money made by outsiders speculating on the Stock Exchange or in mines. I have known many reduced to beggary and want by such means.
Commerce, in our day, is the high road to wealth. You must begin at the bottom, and work your way up to the top. It is not talent that makes a man succeed in business, but the intense determination which carries a man through every obstacle till the desired end is attained. It was thus George Moore became a great man. The first elements in his character were simplicity and directness. He was prompt, energetic, precise; doing at once what he had to do. He never cavilled about trifles. There was no shuffling about him—no humbug. The only thing he could not tolerate was the drone. He held strong opinions on most subjects, and he adhered to them firmly. He never did anything by halves; he went into it body and soul, with the whole of his nature; he went straight to the point. When he had settled a thing he left it as something done; when two sides of a question were presented to him, he was quick to decide, and he was usually right in his decision.
Dr. Smiles writes—“The successful merchant is not merely the man who is most fertile in commercial combinations, but the man who acts upon his judgment with the greatest promptitude.” Mr. Crampton, George Moore’s partner, says—“I never knew him make a mistake in judgment.”
Another fact to be observed is, that it is the country lads who, as a rule, are the most successful. At first they fail in accuracy, and quickness, and promptitude. They are slow compared with town-bred boys. “The City boy,” writes Dr. Smiles, “scarcely grows up; he is rushed up; he lives amid a constant succession of excitements, one obliterating another. It is very different with the country boy; he is much slower in arriving at his maturity than the town boy, but he is greater when he reaches it; he is hard and uncouth at first, whereas the town boy is worn smooth by perpetual friction, like the pebbles in a running stream. The country boy learns a great deal, though he may seem to be unlearned; he knows a good deal about nature, and a great deal about men. He has had time to grow. His brainpower is held in reserve; hence the curious fact, that, in course of time, the country-bred boy passes the City-bred boy, and rises to the highest positions in London life. Look at all the great firms, and you will find that the greater number of the leading partners are those who originally were country-bred boys. The young man bred in the country never forgets his origin.” “There is,” says Rochefoucauld, “a country accent, not in his speech only, but in his thought, conduct, character, and manner of existing, which never forsakes him.”
George Moore had a brother. He was far apter than George; he had a better education; he had read extensively, and was well versed in literature; but he wanted that which his brother George had—intense perseverance. Hence the failure of the one, and the success of the other. It is thus the determined, persevering man who succeeds. It was thus Warren Hastings won back the broad lands of his ancestors.
“In New York,” says an American writer, “fortunes are suddenly made, and suddenly lost. I can count over a dozen merchants who, at the time I began to write this book, a few months ago, were estimated to be worth not less than 250,000 dollars—some of them half a million—who are now utterly penniless. At the opening of this year (1868), a merchant, well-known in this city, had a surplus of 250,000 dollars in cash. He died suddenly in July. He made his will about three months before his death, and appointed his executors. By that will he divided 250,000 dollars. His executors contributed 1,000 dollars to save a portion of his furniture for his widow, and that was all that was left her out of that great estate. He did what thousands have done before him—what thousands are doing now, and will do to-morrow. He had money enough; but he wanted a little more. He was induced to go into a nice little speculation in Wall Street; he put in 50,000 dollars. To save it he put in 50,000 dollars more. The old story was repeated, with the same result.” I knew a gentleman who began the world as an advertising agent; he managed to get a share in a newspaper, which eventually became an immense commercial success. His share of the profits amounted to some thousands a-year; but this was not enough—he must have more. He turned money-lender, borrowing at 5 per cent., to lend money on bad security at a high rate of interest. He died in the prime of life, a bankrupt, and of a broken heart.
It is not every one who knows when to leave off money-making; but there is a time when a wise man will remain satisfied with what he has won. I knew a gentleman in the Corn Exchange, who was worth £80,000. That was not enough for him, though to many it would have been a fair fortune. He was determined to make one grand coup before finally retiring from business, and enjoying the fruits of his industry and enterprise. He did so against the entreaties of his friends. The grand coup was a failure, and he died as poor as Job. Such men are to be met in London every day.
A man who died very rich, was very poor when he was a boy. When asked how he got his riches, he replied—“My father taught me never to play till all my work for the day was finished, and never to spend money till I had earned it. If I had but half-an-hour’s work to do in a day, I must do that the first thing, and in half-an-hour. After this was done I was allowed to play. I early formed the habit of doing everything in its time, and it soon became perfectly easy to do so. It is to this habit that I owe my prosperity.”
Sir Titus Salt, the millionaire, who made a fortune by the introduction of alpaca-wool-cloth into the country, was a very early riser. At Bradford, where he first commenced business, before he had built his grand manufactory at Saltaire, it used to be said—“There is Titus Salt; he has made a thousand pounds before other men were out of bed.”