PETROLEUM FORTUNES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1207, 21 November 1882, Page 2

PETROLEUM FORTUNES.

The following interesting story of how fortunes are lost and won is told by an American paper. It appears that when the Petroleum excitement became rampant, a citizen of Pittsburg went to|Titusville without any money, and after a few weeks fell in with a prosperous speculator and “ struck oil,” making 400,000 dols to 500,000 dols a year. He increased this sum to 1,500,000 dols, and was urged by his friends to retire from the oil region with the wages of his luck. This ho refused to do, and before another twelve month he had lost it all but a few thousand dollars. Then he returned to Pittsburg and went to work in a legitimate way. But the fever of speculation attacked him * once more, and lie betook himself a second time to Oil Creek. After various shifts and adventures, fortune revisited him, and he was able to count his million. Trying to double this—he had fixed his fortune at 2,ooo.ooodols—he was again financially wrecked. This time he was so poor that he stayed among the wells and was forced to earn a livelihood as a dav laborer. New opportunities opened to him, and a third time he got very rich. Reckless speculation once more brought him low, and he left for California, hoping to improve his prospects there. The fascination of petroleum drew him back. He made a fourt h fortune and lost it; and finally a fifth, with the same result. Within a few months the fickle goddess has smiled for a sixth time, and he has invested all his money in Government bonds—well-nigh 1,700,000 dols—and foresworn speculation. He sold all his oil before the recent tumult of prices, and soys he has learned wisdom by experience.