Good Health To Make Money

In the United States, where we have more land than people, it is not atall difficult for persons in good health to make money.

In this comparatively new field there are so many avenues of success open, somany vocations which are not crowded, that any person of either sex who is willing, at least for the time being, to engage in any respect ableoccupation that offers, may find lucrative employment.

Those who really desire to attain an independence, have only to settheir minds upon it, and adopt the proper means, as they do in regard to any other object which they wish to accomplish, and the thing is easily done. But however easy it may be found to make money, I have no doubt many of myhearers will agree it is the most difficult thing in the world to keep it.

The road to wealth is, as Dr. Franklin truly says, "as plain as the road to the mill." It consists simply in expending less than we earn; that seems to be a very simpleproblem. Mr. Micawber, one of those happy creations of the genial Dickens, puts the case in astrong light when he says that to have annual income of twenty pounds per annum, and spend twenty pounds and sixpence, is to be the mostmiserable of men; whereas, to have an income of only twenty pounds, andspend but nineteen pounds and sixpence is to be the happiest of mortals.

Many of my readers may say, "we understand this: this is economy, and weknow economy is wealth; we know we can't eat our cake and keep it also." Yet I beg to say that perhaps more cases of failure arise from mistakes on this point than almost any other. The fact is, many people think they understand economy when they really do not.True economy is misapprehended, and people go through life without properly comprehending what that principle is. One says, "I have an income of so much, and here is my neighbor who has the same; yet every year he gets something ahead and I fall short; why is it?

I know all about economy." He thinks he does, but he does not. There are men who think that economy consists in saving cheese-parings and candle-ends,incutting off two pence from the laundress' bill and doing all sorts of little, mean, dirty things.

Economy is not meanness. The misfortune is, also, that this class of persons let their economy apply in only one direction. They fancy they are so wonderfully economical in saving a half-penny where they ought to spend twopence, that they think they can afford to squander in other directions.

A few years ago, before kerosene oil was discovered or thought of, one might stop overnight at almost any farmer's house in the agricultural districts and get a very good supper,but after supper he might attempt to read in the sitting-room, and would find it impossible with the inefficient light of one candle.