LUCKY DOGS!

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 59, 18 June 1910, Page 12

LUCKY DOGS!

WHAT PEOPLE HAVE MADE OUT OF THE RUBBER BOOM.

There are men worth thousands of pounds to-day who, before the rubber boom set in, had not as many shillings to call their own. One skilful financier in London is known to have made upwards of one million pounds out of dealings in rubber shares during the past three months.

In Queen Victoria Street, the other day (says a London paper), the writer chanced to meet a friend whom he had not seen for a couple of years. He was looking iparticualrly elated, and well he might. "I have every reason to appear cheerful." he said, "for I, have made nearly sixty thousand pounds out of the rubber boom."

But it is only right to add that he was "in the know," and able to discriminate between what was 'worth speculating in and what was better left severely alone. His money was certainly not made'by promiscuous investment in any and every company whose prospectuses have been taking up the columns of the financial and other newspapers and choking our letter-boxes during the past few weeks.

That is the way money has been lost; and it is sheer folly risking money without knowing what' to buy, or put one's money in. Large sums have, however, been made by one or two .persons who, in their innocence, have happened to tumble on to the right thing. A case on point is that of a city clerk who had never been in receipt of more than thirty shillings a week. He invested all his modest savings in certain rubber shares when they were to toe had at a low figure. He did this much against his relatives' wishes, but he was justified by the result. A few days afterwards the shares began to sho;w an upward movement, and they finally got so high that the delighted speculator went in dread of a rapid fall. He accordingly sold out, and cleared £SOO by his 'little "flutter." The shares, however, went still higher; but he put his profits into other rubber speculations, and he soon found himseii still more fortunate. His capital grew into a couple of thousand pounds, which, by subsequent transactions upon which he was emboldened to embark, grew and grew, until the erstwhile clerk is now worth rather more than £5000;

Fancy a young woman making no less than £15,000, without advice or assistance from' anv member of the sterner sex acquainted with -*he ins and outs of the rubber-share market! The secret of her success was, in fact, keeping her eyes and ears open. One morning she chanced to overhear a conversation between two fellow-travellers in the train which took her down to her business, as a typist, every day.

The following morning she made it her object to travel to the city in timi' company again, and she overheard further remarks. Putting two and two together, she gathered from the conversation that the shares of certain rubber '•ononis were bound to rise greatly in value, Curiously enough, she also heard her employer discussing some of the shares over the telephone during the day. Finding that the financial papers likewise predicted a boom in the shares, the enterprising damsel got a stockbroker's clerk.to put through an order to buy for her. The transaction turned out highly profitable, and was the first of several others upon which she was induced to venture by the information she picked up in various ways. Each successful operation made her bolder, and, once having got into the running, so to speak, she dabbled in rubber shares whenever her judgment prompted her. The consequence was that her profits mounted up until they ran into some thousands of pounds.,