957. A Great Electrical Company.—Another of Bellamy’s dreams is to be realized. New York capitalists, with millions of dollars at their command, have united in a great scheme to supply electrical energy to run the elevated and surface railroads and the factories of the metropolis. They propose to do away with steam entirely, except for heating purposes. They will control more than 1,000 square miles of the watersheds of the Catskills, and the mountain streams will be harnessed to furnish electricity for New York. The company claim to have the names of such well known persons as Thomas C. Platt, Silas B. Dutcher, and Edward Lauterbach as interested persons in the scheme, and it is said that the undertaking will be on a much grander scale than the similar one at Niagara, to which the Vanderbilts, the Webbs, and other famous manipulators of finance have furnished backing. If this scheme should materialize, it will undoubtedly be one of the best paying investments.
958. Industrial Stocks.—Here is a partial list of the best paying stocks. Of course, where the interest is large, the price of the stocks is correspondingly high. The investor, before paying the high prices asked, should use his best judgment in considering whether the present rates are likely to be maintained. The highest dividends on industrial stocks last year were as follows: Adams’ Express, 8; Consolidated Gas (New York), 8; Peter Lorillard (tobacco), 8; American Tobacco, 9; Diamond Match, 10; American Sugar Refining Company, 12; American Bell Telephone, 18; Standard Oil, 33; Welsbach Light, 80.
959. Railroads Dividends.—Stock in such railroads as the Pennsylvania, Lake Shore, Michigan Central, New York Central, New York and New Haven, are safe and profitable investments, if you can get them. The last-named road has paid ten per cent. for many years, though recently the figures have dropped to eight. The railroad stocks paying the highest dividends last year were as follows: New York, New Haven and Hartford, 8 per cent.; Great Southern (Alabama), 9; Manchester and Lawrence, 10; Norwich and Worcester, 10; Boston and Providence, 10; Connecticut River, 10; Georgia, 11; Northern (New Hampshire), 11; Philadelphia, Germantown and Northern, 12; Pennsylvania Coal, 16.
960. Lodging House.—A man leased an abandoned hotel, containing 100 small rooms, and fitted them up with single beds. He charged a uniform price of twenty-five cents a night. The location was down town in New York, the congested district where congregate travelers, tradesmen, workingmen, and the vast class of floaters. His rooms were nearly always full. Income per day, $25. Daily expenses: Night clerk, $2; two chambermaids ($15 each per month), $1. Rent, $5; lights, $1; laundry, $3; sundries, $1. Total expenses per day, $13. Net profit, $12 per day. He says, “I am sure I could double these profits if I could double my accommodations.”
961. Real Estate.—A young man twenty-one years of age, and possessing $500, bought a tract of land in the outskirts of a suburban city for $1,500. The tract contained twenty acres, and he paid $500 down and gave a mortgage for the remainder. He had the property surveyed and divided into lots, eight to the acre. The tract was located on the bend of a river, and he called it “Riverside Park.” Lots were advertised for sale at $100 each. The first year he cleared off the mortgage by the sale of lots. He had remaining 145 lots. In five years he sold all these lots at an average price of $85. Total amount received for lots, $13,825. Price of land, $1,500. Taxes, $625. Surveying, grading, etc., $762. Advertising and other methods of booming the property, $1,272. Total cost and expenses, $3,534. Net profit, $10,291. By repeating this process on a larger scale in another city, this young man, who started at sixteen years of age with nothing, and by hard work and economy had save $500 at twenty-one, found himself at the age of forty with $100,000. The secrets of his success were four: Shrewdness in foreseeing where property would be likely to advance; energy in quickly changing the property from a farm into building lots; taste in making them attractive, and giving the place a pretty name; and, most important of all, the knowing how to create a market. We have known this process repeated by others with almost equally marked success. In all our large cities there are land companies developing suburban property and making money rapidly.
CHAPTER XXXII.
MONEY IN SPARE TIME.
Fortunes in Spare Moments—Millions Missed for Want of Economy of Time—Stories of Famous Men.
Lost! somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
962. Five Minutes a Day before a box of paints or a bunch of finely shaded ribbons will make you expert in colors, a position of great importance and large salary in many stores.
963. Ten Minutes a Day practicing stenography after you have learned the system from a good text-book, will fit you in a year’s time to take any place where the services of a short-hand writer are required.