will be worth thousands of dollars to those who will read and remember. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage once said, in speaking of one of his noted lectures, that it was fully worth ten dollars, but only cost his hearers one dollar; that allowed them to take nine dollars' worth back home with them when they went. I now say that this book is worth to my readers one thousand dollars, and only costs him one dollar, the price of a good dinner; this allows him to take a clear profit of $999.00 back to the same old home. If you wish to succeed, do not consult a theorist, a socialist or a dreamer, one who has never made a success in life, but consult a man who has been successful, a man who has accumulated something. When you listen to me, you hear from a man who has never undertaken a job that he has not pulled through. Although I was caught in the unforeseen panic of 1893 with an incumbrance of over $25,000, with no income except my hands and brain, yet in seven years of hard work I had reduced said indebtedness to less than $10,000, and was then the owner of upwards of $60,000 worth of property, with an income of $1,000 per month; this at the age of forty, and if I had not taken into my business as partner a MAN WITHOUT PRINCIPLE, who betrayed my confidence, with the assistance of a set of parasites,* I to-day,

*Webster says: "A parasite is an animal which lives during the whole or part of its existence on the body of some other animal, as lice, etc."

at forty-eight, would be worth twice as much; and, with the knowledge I now have and the ambition I once had, I at present could be worth from one-quarter to one-half of a million dollars.

From the days of Adam until the present time, children have been born, grown up, lived to the age of the allotted time of three score and ten, passed away, been buried without any set rule as to how to live; no system to follow, laid down by those who have passed on before; each and every person has been obliged to hew out his own trough and stake out his own salvation. If they made money and were successful, they called it good luck; if they lost money and failed, it was bad luck, and there it ended. Luck may have something to do with success, but not always. A great deal depends upon judgment. I once saw an old carpenter sawing off pieces of 2x4 scantlings, all precisely of the same length, by the eye, using no square or measure. I complimented him on being a good guesser, to which he took offense, saying there was no guessing about it; it was estimation. Most things have been done hind end first, which has caused a failure. They are like the deacon who sold the parson a barrel of apples. The next time they met, the parson complained that when the deacon sold the fruit there was a large, fine layer of apples on the top, and the further down he went, the poorer the fruit, until he

reached the bottom, where he found them so small and gnarly that they were only fit for cider. To which the deacon replied by saying: "Brother, we both made a mistake. We opened the barrel from the wrong end; we should have opened it from the other side; then we would have come to the small apples first, and the further down we went, the finer the fruit, until we had struck the bottom, and there we would have found those fine, large layers of apples which I showed you.'

The main object of the writer of this book, which comes before the monetary consideration, is to show the public how to live the longest and the best while on this earth, and how to get the most out of life while living; for, as the old saying goes, when through here, "We shall be a long time dead!" This is a most beautiful world-a paradise-a Garden of Eden in which we are all placed, and it is up to us to enjoy the same every hour and every moment of our whole lives to the fullest extent. Simply the making and handling of money is not the only requirement for success. There are many other things much more essential than the accumulation of wealth. To have lived one's life successfully, one must have possessed honesty, a clear conscience, happiness and contentment mixed with a little cash. John D. Rockefeller, the richest man on earth-has he been a success? As far as the making of money is con

cerned, yes. As for the other requirements, No. Has he lived and enjoyed the three score years through which he has passed, with the reputation which he has thus acquired, and now in his declining years can he looked back over his past life and say, "I have done well and have nothing to regret"? Would you at the present time change places with him? The people have grown moneymad. It is not to-day a question of how they get their money, so long as they have it. They are like a pig in a beechnut grove, eating beechnuts, never looking up to see where the nuts come from, so long as he gets them. Boys grow up and rush through this beautiful world and don't half see it. Money has so taken possession of their brains that they see nothing else. This world is a broad avenue up which we are all marching. I say "up,' because life is one continuous struggle from the croupy cradle to the gloomy grave. From the widowed washerwoman who rubs out the weekly wash and gathers together barely enough to provide for her fatherless children to the king of finance who controls the money market of the world—all have reached their limit, and all are loaded to their fullest capacity. As I have just said, this world is a great avenue filled with ruts over which we stumble and fall, and holes into which we step and are able to step out; others into which we fall and must be helped out; and

still others into which we plunge and are ground to pieces. This country has many a great man who can from the crops and conditions foresee the future money market a year or two in advance; but, on his way down town, when he alights from an electric car and takes four steps to the left, when the car leaves, the fifth step places him upon the second track, where he walks in front of a rapidly approaching train from the opposite direction, he is knocked down and ground to pieces. Haste makes mistakes and has cost many a life. STOP, and THINK. The cautious rat who hesitates lives to be old and gray, but the young and eager fellow walks into almost any kind of a trap. Most accidents are caused by too much haste. The man who gets up early in the morning, walks slowly, takes his time, lives better and twice as long, even if he dies at the same age as the man who sleeps until the last moment and rushes through this beautiful world, always chasing a dollar, and a street car, a block behind.

In the spring of 1895 I canvassed the town of Malta, Illinois, sixty-five miles west of the city of Chicago, on the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. There I met a young fellow who had just become of age, and whose father, a wealthy cattle buyer and the owner of several farms, had purchased a 160-acre farm for him and turned it over for him to pay. This young fellow, who stood five