AND WHERE TO FIND ONE. 173 



the labor ; and then, in pursuance of the saving part of his 

 plan, requested some small gratuity of meat and drink, 

 which was given him. He then looked out for the next 

 thing that might chance to offer, and went with indefatigable 

 industry through a succession of servile employments, in 

 different places, of longer and shorter duration, still scru 

 pulously avoiding, as far as possible, the expense of a penny. 

 He promptly seized every opportunity which could advance 

 his design, without regarding the meanness of occupation 

 or appearance. By this method he had gained, after a 

 considerable time, money enough to purchase, in order to 

 sell again, a few cattle, of which he had taken pains to un 

 derstand the value. He speedily but cautiously turned his 

 first gains into second advantages; retained, without a 

 single deviation, his extreme parsimony, and thus advanced, 

 by degrees, into larger transactions and incipient wealth. I 

 did not hear, or have forgotten, the continued course of his 

 life ; but the final result was, that he more than recovered 

 his lost possessions, and died an old miser, worth 60,000. 

 &quot;In the United* States, similar instances of moderate 

 fortunes acquired through persevering industry, and acquired, 

 too, without the sin of covetousness, are so numerous, that 

 a volume would hardly contain them. A leading builder, 

 in New York city, now entitled to a place in the book of 

 the Rich Men, was, some years ago, a bricklayer s laborer, 

 at one dollar per day. He states that out of this sum he 

 always contrived to save fifty cents per day, and laid by 

 $1 80 the first year. The senior members of many a staunch 

 firm commenced their connection with mercantile life by 

 sweeping out the store in which their fortunes were after 

 wards acquired. But, notwithstanding the many cheering 

 exceptions to the rule, it is nevertheless true, that ordinary 

 unskilled labor can, at best, make but slow progress toward 

 the accumulation of capital. 



