HOW WEALTHY MEN MADE THEIR MILLIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 75, 24 April 1909, Page 3

HOW WEALTHY MEN MADE THEIR MILLIONS.

j SOME ROMANCES OF RICHES. ! Luck, it is asserted, plays a prominent part in the making of a millionaire. Maybe it does in some eases. The faculty for seizing opportunities, however, and foreseeing events figures far mole largely than luck in the stories of how millionaires made their money. Take the ease, for instance, of I'hiiip Danforth Armour, the mau who fotuuled the great Chicago firm of meat-packers, which has an annual output of something like £20,000,000 and employs 30,01)0 people. Armour was a farm laborer in early life. Then he tried digging for gold, failed to find any, but with his shrewd eye saw potential riches in the fertile land of the West, lie turned his farm knowledge to account by starting a small commission business, and when he had saved sullicient obtained a partnership in a packing concern, and thus started on the road to fortune. |

W'UAUF PORTER TO MILLIONAIRE. I Mr. .lame., .1. Hill, the "Railroad King," Thornton Hail tells us in his most interesting book, "Roads to liieh,s," began life as a wharf porter at idols a day, saw money in coal-, selling, and succeeded so well that he soon owned steamboats. Andrew Carnegie worked as a bobbin boy for 5s per week, and ultimately as a telegraph-' operator at .Co a month, before he made his first investment. He bought £IOO worth of shares in the Adams Express Company, and was one of the few who saw the great possibilities of that concern. .

Mr. Ogden Mills, the New York banker, famous for his philanthropy as much as for his millions, began life as a clerk in a store, and ultimately entered a bank in Bull'alo, where he learned the secrets of finance while counting out the dollars. When tile rush for gold Hooded California with immigrants he saw his opportunity. He went to Sacramento, where lie made £BOOO in his first year by shrewd dealing.

BRITISH MILLIONAIRES IN TIIE MAKING. Although, save Thornton Hall in another chapter of his book, which tells many fascinating stories of the making of great fortunes, Great Britain has no records of sensational rises to stupendous fortunes such as America can boast, she is by no means without her romances of money-making. And here again we have some remarkable illustrations of how opportunities were grasped at the right moment and turned to profitable account.

Kir "William Arrol, the millionaireengiuecr, who at nine years of age went to a cotton mill to add a few shillings to the family exchequer, scraped together £BS, spent £43 oil an engine and boiler, and set up in business 011 his own account at a time when engineering was in its infancy. Sir Christopher Furuess had made enough money in the grocery line to retire at twenty-six. lie saw the great possibilities of steamship trallie, however, purchased a small ileet of steamers, which was the nucleus of the famous Furness line, and which during the shipping boom is said to have made a clear profit of £BO,OOO in one week.

Sir Ernest Cassel's opportunity came when he was a salaried clerk in a London financial house. His firm happened to be engaged in au affair which was in such an inextricable state that it threatened to bring disaster in its train. Modestly young Ca6sel formulated a plan for the solution of the difficulties that had baffled his superiors, Ilia plan was so successful that the pecuniary benefits lie derived therefrom enabled him to start business on his own account and lay the foundations of his great fortune.

Sir Donald Currie, like Sir Christopher Fumes?. saw the great possibilities of the shipping boom, and at the right moment started a line trading to Calcutta. Sir Donald attributes his wonderful success to hard work. "Au ounce of hard work," he says, "is worth a ton of so-called geniiw without it." But to thin essential quality of industry must be added at least one other—absolute and transparent integrity. As a friend of his remarked not Jong ago, "There's precious little humbug in Donald Currie/'

THE MILLIOXAIW-: COCSIXS. Amongst the interesting instances of poor boys who have woh richer and renown which Thornton Hail gives, however, none is so interesting, perhaps, as that of the two cousins, J,ord Strathcona and Lord Mount Stephen. Seventy years or so ago. so the story goes, two barefooted "Scottish lads were fishing in a Highland .-Ueam. "Wlj »>ee no lairds in Canada when l you are g<'ing. Cousin Donald/' *aid one of the hids, George Stephen, a herd-boy. "Maybe nul." answered his companion, Donald Smith, "but.'' he added proudly, "there'll be Indians and Imll'aloes and fur trading. .Maybe I'll win enough money to come back, s»-e auld Scotland again, and have a snug little place of my own." And sixty years after the gaunt, red-haired Donald Smith crossed the Atlantic in the steerage of sailing vessel ho relumed with his stall' of secretaries and his retinue of servants on the Teutonic as the "Right Honorable Baron Strathcona and Mou it ll.iyal.ofGleneoe." laden with honors a< with years, and a millionaire several times over. LOUD .MO I'XT STEPHEN'.

And what of his cousin? ileorge Stephen simply followed Donald to Canada thirteen yeans later, entered the dry goods store of another cousin, William Stephen, and within twenty-six years r 'f landing in the colony an almost penniless draper was (Jovernor of the Bank of Montreal and recognised as one of the soundest m;n in all Canada. Then came Cousin Donald's scheme of the railway to li.ik the two vast oceans and to tap the latent richer of the great Xorth-West. He saw his opportunity, seized it, and on thits scheme Cousin Stephen embarked his money, brains, anil industry with such enormous advantage to himself that in ten years he , was a millionaire.

HOW TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE 1 And how can one become a million- 1 aire? Listen to the advice of Mr. Hockc-1 feller. "Do not be discouraged, and' save," he nays. "Do all things well. \ was taught as a boy in the country to milk a cow. 1 could milk a cow as well as any man could. I sr. >n learned that I er.uld get as much interest for £lO loaned at 5 per cent, as by digging potatoes for ten days. Ami thus I learned that it is a good thing to let money be your servant and not make yourself <i slave to money. Some men fail because they overrate their own ability and underestimate that (if their competitors. Such a mistake should be carefully avoided. Wed natural ability to hard work and you have a combination (hat. nothing can defeat." ''Poads to Hiches*' lis a very delightful book, sirs interesting ( as a novel. The author i> one of the ! cleverest journalists in London, and in | this volume lias produced the most entertaining medley of fact and biography published during the !a-»t year. The hi.ok should be in the hands of every amhiliou* young man. and fathers j should get it to show their *on.< how to , win MK'cess,- -Tit Hits.