914. The National Advertising Company.—Form a company of live, energetic, intelligent young men. Ascertain the extent of circulation of some of our literary magazines. For every subscriber and buyer there are at least three readers; some estimate five. Bunch together the circulation of some of the leading periodicals, and when you are sure of a million readers, begin operations. Divide the country up into sections, with a central headquarters, and let one of a pair of your young men work each. One member of the firm remains to control the office. The magazines should be those whose circulation covers the entire country, and the advertisements you seek to gain should not be of a local but of a general character. Then you can work your field, promising that for so many cents per thousand or dollars per million, you will place the advertisements before the eyes of that number of people. Have circulars headed “Millions for Cents.” The power of numbers has a charm for most people, and few advertisers will be able to resist your array of figures.
915. Free Rent.—Get your rent free on the same plan that some men get a building lot free. Take a large house, which, we will say, costs you $75 per month. Such a house should have at least twelve rooms, six of which should be bedrooms. These rooms should be readily sublet for $3 a week, which, allowing for the fractions over the even weeks in a month, exactly pays your rent. By means of folding-beds you can readily convert some of the remaining six into sleeping rooms. If your family is small, a parlor can be so used.
916. X-Rays and X-Bills.—The fluoroscope is a new thing. It is a great thing to see the bones of one’s hands, or keys imbedded in two inches of solid wood. You can invent many other ways of making the novelty interesting. People pay to see what is novel. With proper advertising, a really good fluoroscope exhibition should net at least $10 a night.
917. Golden Sails.—Cleopatra’s barge may not have had golden sails, but if you live along shore, especially near a summer resort, you can turn your sails into gold, and make the wind waft you money by taking parties for an outing on the water. You should get $10 for a party of six; $15 for a party of ten, etc. The requisites are a good boat, made attractive by awning and colored cushions, fishing tackle, bait, etc., and a pleasant, obliging disposition.
918. Game Preserve.—If you live far inland, you can buy at cheap rates a wild mountain or a large tract of wilderness. Around this construct a high fence and stock your purchase with game. All this will require capital, but you will find ample returns for your investment in the rates which you will charge city sportsmen for a day’s sport. These hunters care little for the money if they can have a good day’s sport. After your game preserve becomes well known, through liberal advertising, $25 a day on your investment during the season should be a very modest expectation.
919. The Junk Shop.—One of the things most in demand to-day is iron. This is the iron age. It is displacing brick for building and wood for ships. And yet how much goes to waste! Stoves, pots, kettles, rails, machinery, wagon springs, car wheels, pillars, girders, and a multitude of other forms of this valuable metal go to waste. The junk shop is a mine. Manufacturers will pay you fifty cents per 100 pounds. The fact is not generally known, but many junk dealers have become rich.
920. Old Newspapers.—Newspapers should not be sold to the ragman until they have been scissored, and perhaps not then. In New York there is a man who makes a business of preserving newspapers. You can get almost any copy of any paper for a number of years back. Copies forty years old bring as high as $20 apiece. A copy twenty years old will bring $4 or $5. Copies more than one year old and less than five sell from fifty cents to one dollar. If salable, every day increases the value of your stock.
921. The Book Stall.—Where come the books on the street stalls that sell for such marvelously low prices? From the cellars (would-be sellers) of publication houses. These are the books that will not sell at rates profitable to the publishers, and are bought up by the thousand at small rates. Many of them come from the libraries of persons deceased, and from the bookcases of men tired of carting them around in this moving age. Sold at fifteen, twenty or twenty-five cents apiece, there is a large profit in these books, for they are often bought at $10 per thousand—that is, a penny apiece. Profits at ten cents, 900 per cent. Bought at $50 per thousand, you have still 400 per cent. Pretty fair profits indeed! Let us no longer despise the old dealer in second-hand books.
922. Old Furniture.—Furniture made of the best material brings large prices. Only slightly marred, chairs and other kinds of household furniture often made of costly woods, are stored away as useless in the attic. These could frequently be purchased at very low prices, the owners being glad to get rid of them as an incumbrance. Yet a little money would make them as good as new. Five dollars expended on a chair that originally cost $50 and was repurchased in a dilapidated state for $10; it was sold by the adroit second-hand dealer for $25; and the purchaser considered it an excellent bargain. The dealer’s profit was $10. Time consumed in repair, one day and a half. The man earned $6.66-1/3 per day. Some in the same line have done much better. With competent helpers and with industry in hunting up old furniture, these figures should be trebled and quadrupled.
923. Public Convenience Room.—Establish it on some prominent thoroughfare. It need not be very large. Suppose the rent to be $25 per month. Let it be understood that for five cents you will furnish materials for correspondence (pen, ink and paper), a writing desk, brushes band lacking for shoes (not the services of a bootblack), a whisk broom, a mirror, the use of a daily paper, a city directory, a large map of the city, information on points of interest concerning the things worth seeing, directions how to reach any part of the city, sofas and easy chairs for resting, and the use of a toilet room. All for five cents! You should have at least 200 patrons a day; receipts, $10. Besides, you could sell stationery, confectionery, cigars, magazines, and many other small articles in common use. The place could advantageously be established in connection with a restaurant. Do you know that some of the largest fortunes have been made from just such five-cent charges. A millionaire street-railroad magnate, being asked recently what his business was, replied: “Oh! just a five-cent business—that’s all.”