£4,000,000 IN TWENTY YEARS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 96, 15 October 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

£4,000,000 IN TWENTY YEARS.

ROMANCES OF ADVERTISING. Even in America, where men of the type of Get-rich-quick-Wallingford abound, the career of Mr. Charles William Post, of Washington, who died recently, was a notable one. Mr. Po6t was proprietor of Grape-Nuts, known by every man, woman, and child in the kingdom. He left the huge fortune of £4,294,423, and as he did not begin his manufacture of foods until 1894, his great wealth, most of which has been bequeathed to his wife, who was formerly his shorthand writer and typist, has been built up in the space of twenty years. It was at an old barn near Battle Creek in the States that Mr. Post began the manufacture of patent tooas on a small scale. To-day on the same site stands the huge model plant known as the White City, where thousands of men and women are employed, and on which £200,000 per annum in advertising has been spent. Other notable instances of fortunes derived from the manufacture of patent foods and medicines are :—Mr. .lame* Epps, of the famous cocoa hrm, £735,837; Mr. Fred Boden Benger, of Benger's Food, £420,807; Mr. Johann Carl Gustav Mellin, of Mellin's Food, £114,218; Senator the Hon. Geo. Taylor Fulford, proprietor of Dr. Williams' Pink Pills, £1,311,000; Mr. Jeremiah Jame; Colman, of Colman's Mustard and Starch, £687,024; Mr. George Handyoide, of Handvside's Consumption Cure, £147,860; Mr. Walter Tom Owbridge, of Owbridge'e Lung Tonic, £112,214; Mr. Robert Dyer Commans, of Areca Nut Tooth Paste, £119,777; Mr. Thomas Beeeham, of Beecham's Pills, £199,777: Mr Alfred B. Scott, of Seotts* Emulsion (Englsih property). £174,947.