294. Clerical Agency.—Here is an opportunity for an unoccupied clergyman of wide clerical acquaintance. There are thousands of vacant pulpits and other thousands of ministers anxious for calls. Establish an agency through whose medium the supply shall meet the demand. Your list should comprise the names of all churchless pastors, together with those desirous of change; and their experience, qualifications, education, family, age, personal appearance, together with other interesting information, should be properly tabulated for the inspection of church committees. Candidates should be graded according to the catalogue, and sent out in order as pulpit candidates. As clerical engagements are commonly much longer than those of teachers, it is right that you should receive a larger per cent. for your services. If a church pays its pastor a salary of $10,000, and you are successful in the search for an available man for its pulpit, it would hardly be a presumption for you to charge $500 for your services.
295. Matrimonial Agencies.—These should be conducted with the greatest care, and only by the most conscientious persons, on account of the great responsibilities involved. They are, however, capable of vast development, and of immense good. In Massachusetts alone there are seventy thousand females in excess of the males, while in Illinois the men preponderate to the number of fifty thousand. Your task of bringing together the unmated is a most delicate one, and you should accordingly be well compensated. Where there is much wealth on either side, your commission may be expressed in three figures, and even in four. One thousand dollars is a small sum for a man to pay who secures an accomplished wife and a happy home. We have known several marriages made in this way to turn out exceedingly well.
296. Agency for Servants.—This is not new, but you might revolutionize it by a new plan. Written recommendations are worthless, because almost every one will compensate the disappointment of the discharged servant by a certificate of good behavior, in the writing of which the elasticity of the conscience is more or less drawn upon. Instead of accepting a valueless paper, let an employee of the office personally visit two or three of the places where the servant has been employed. The lady of the house will tell you many things she would not write in the letter. This will consume time, but the compensation is in the better class of service you will be enabled to offer. When it is known that you make personal investigation, sifting out the useless and offering only first-class help, your patronage will be vastly increased, and you can charge much higher commissions. Tell your patron that at the end of a month she may pay you $10 if satisfied; and most people would prefer to do that than to pay a half or quarter of that sum in advance with small guarantee of fitness.
297. Agency for Farm Hands.—There are thousands of idle people in the great cities who would gladly go on farms for a portion of the year. If they make personal application, they are commonly regarded by the farmer as tramps. Besides these, there are thousands of emigrants arriving in search of work. Many of them are valuable as farm help, having tilled the soil at home. An agent who has a keen knowledge of human nature, and knows how to ask questions, sifting out the useless and the vicious from the valuable and the virtuous, can through proper advertising in agricultural papers, send at least a thousand of these men into the country every summer. Through an arrangement with the farmer by which $5 of the first month’s wages shall be withheld and forwarded to the agent, the sum of $5,000 as commission for these one thousand laborers is secured. But the energetic agent ought to do far better than this.
CHAPTER X.
MONEY IN PROPRIETARY COMPOUNDS.
Proprietary Kings and How They Acquired Power—Patent Medicine Secrets Given Away—Where Perry Davis Found His Recipe—The Parent of the “Killers”—Men Who Made Their “Pile” in Pills—Fortunes in “Bitters”—Electricity, or “Mustard Plasters”—The Story of a “Discovery”—How a Man Made a Fortune With an Indian Cure—“What’s in a Name?” The Mighty Lubec—Tons of Drugs Taken Every Day—Triumph of “Soothing Syrup”—A New Patent Medicine for Every Day of the Year—The Man Who Took Everything.
Owners of proprietary compounds have built up great fortunes in the sale of their concoctions. Our drug stores are filled with patent medicines, and millions of “cures” are sold annually. The names of some of these, such as Hostetter, Brandreth, and Mother Winslow, have become household words, proving how largely and universally their medicines have sold. The story is told of one credulous hypochondriac, who, on the theory that of many shot some one is likely to hit, actually took every kind of patent medicine in the world, or at least of every sort he had heard about. As there are more than three hundred and sixty diverse concoctions, this genius must have taken a different kind for every day of the year, or else have extended his experiments through a long period, which seems impossible under the circumstances. It is said that Perry Davis obtained his famous “Discovery” in the form of a recipe in an old newspaper which he found in an outhouse. This was the foundation of one of the largest fortunes in patent medicines, and it was the parent of all the “Killers.” The men who have made their piles in “pills” may be counted by the hundred. Perhaps the “Soothing Syrup” success is the most signal example of “multum in parvo.” It is sold by the million bottles, and yet it is nothing but a little paregoric dropped in some sweet mixture. “Lubec” is a mighty name, but anybody can be a Lubec so far as the question of perfumery goes. Among the anecdotes of medicine venders we have only space for one or two. A man was crying up the virtues of an electric belt, and it was found that he had adroitly attached a strip of mustard plaster to the magic band, and this when heated by contact with the warm skin produced redness and an itching, which were supposed by the too trusting patient to be the effects of the healing electricity. Another man has made a fortune with an “Indian Plant.” He travels about the country with what he advertises to be a “troop of Indians,” giving performances and hawking his “cures.” The “Indians” are New York toughs, and the “medicine plant” is a common pasture weed. We give no sort of countenance to these frauds, but, dismissing them all, there are still both profit to the patient and profit to the maker in the taking of proprietary medicines. To succeed in this line one should first have an article of genuine merit, and then advertise lavishly. Below are given some recipes quite as good as those that have made fortunes for their possessors, and in some cases the exact formulas of these widely renowned medicines are given.
298. Healing Ointment.—One of the most celebrated of ointments is composed of these simple ingredients: Butter, lard, Venice turpentine, white wax and yellow wax. Here is a rule for another ointment: Fresh butter, three-quarters pound; beeswax, four ounces; yellow resin, three ounces; melt together; add vinegar of cantharides, one fluid ounce; and simmer the whole with constant agitation for ten or twelve minutes, or until the moisture is nearly evaporated; then add of Canada balsam one ounce; express oil of mace, one drachm; balsam of Peru, ten or twelve drops; again stir well, allow mixture to settle; and when about half cold pour into pots previously slightly warmed, and allow it to cool very slightly. There is nothing else but to put on your label and expose for sale.
299. Spasm Killer.—Acetate of morphia, one grain; spirit of sal volatile and sulphuric ether, one fluid ounce each; camphor julep, four ounces. Keep closely corked in a cool place and shake well before use. Dose, one teaspoonful in a glass of cold water as required.
Here is another: Spirits of camphor, two ounces; tincture of capsicum, one ounce; tincture of guaiac, one-half ounce; tincture of myrrh, one-half ounce; alcohol, four ounces. This is Perry Davis’ famous medicine.