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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April
1848, by Various

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Title: Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848

Author: Various

Editor: George R. Graham
        Robert T. Conrad

Release Date: June 25, 2009 [EBook #29239]

Language: English


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GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXXII.          PHILADELPHIA,  APRIL,  1848.         No. 4.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

JACOB JONES. 193     THE DARLING. 197     BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 198     THE POET'S LOVE. 200     MARY WARNER. 201     TO THE AUTHOR OF "THE RAVEN". 203     SONG OF THE ELVES. 203     THE FIRE OF DRIFT-WOOD. 204     SONG FOR A SABBATH MORNING. 204     CITY LIFE. 204     THE CRUISE OF THE GENTILE. 205     ILENOVAR. 218     THE LAST OF HIS RACE. 220     DECAY AND ROME. 220     THE LITTLE CAP-MAKER. 221     NO, NOT FORGOTTEN. 228     PAULINE GREY. 229     THE SAILOR-LOVER TO HIS MISTRESS. 233     THE PORTRAIT OF GEN. SCOTT. 234     O, SCORN NOT THY BROTHER. 235     BEN BOLT. 236     THE SPIRIT OF SONG. 238     A PARTING. 238     REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS. 239

JACOB JONES. OR THE MAN WHO COULDN'T GET ALONG IN THE WORLD.

BY T. S. ARTHUR.

Jacob Jones was clerk in a commission store at a salary of five hundred dollars a year. He was just twenty-two, and had been receiving this salary for two years. Jacob had no one to care for but himself; but, somehow or other, it happened that he did not lay up any money, but, instead, usually had from fifty to one hundred dollars standing against him on the books of his tailors.

"How much money have you laid by, Jacob?" said one day the merchant who employed him. This question came upon Jacob rather suddenly; and coming from the source that it did, was not an agreeable one—for the merchant was a very careful and economical man.

"I havn't laid by any thing yet," replied Jacob, with a slight air of embarrassment.

"You havn't!" said the merchant, in surprise. "Why what have you done with your money?"

"I've spent it, somehow or other."

"It must have been somehow or other, I should think, or somehow else," returned the employer, half seriously, and half playfully. "But really, Jacob, you are a very thoughtless young man to waste your money."

"I don't think I waste my money," said Jacob.

"What, then, have you done with it?" asked the merchant.

"It costs me the whole amount of my salary to live."

The merchant shook his head.

Then you live extravagantly for a young man of your age and condition. How much do you pay for boarding?"

"Four dollars a week."

"Too much by from fifty cents to a dollar. But, even paying that sum, four more dollars per week ought to meet fully all your other expenses, and leave you what would amount to nearly one hundred dollars per annum to lay by. I saved nearly two hundred dollars a year on a salary no larger than you receive."

"I should like very much to know how you did it. I can't save a cent; in fact, I hardly ever have ten dollars in my pocket."

"Where does your money go, Jacob? In what way do you spend a hundred dollars a year more than is necessary?"

"They are spent, I know; and that is pretty much all I can tell about it," replied Jacob.

"You can certainly tell by your private account book."

"I don't keep any private account, sir."

"You don't?" in surprise.

"No, sir. What's the use? My salary is five hundred dollars a year, and wouldn't be any more nor less if I kept an account of every half cent of it."

"Humph!"

The merchant said no more. His mind was made up about his clerk. The fact that he spent five hundred dollars a year, and kept no private account, was enough for him.

"He'll never be any good to himself nor anybody else. Spend his whole salary—humph! Keep no private account—humph!"

This was the opinion held of Jacob Jones by his employer from that day. The reason why he had inquired as to how much money he had saved, was this. He had a nephew, a poor young man, who, like Jacob, was a clerk, and showed a good deal of ability for business. His salary was rather more than what Jacob received, and, like Jacob, he spent it all; but not on himself. He supported, mainly, his mother and a younger brother and sister. A good chance for a small, but safe beginning, was seen by the uncle, which would require only about a thousand dollars as an investment. In his opinion it would be just the thing for Jacob and the nephew. Supposing that Jacob had four or five hundred dollars laid by, it was his intention, if he approved of the thing, to furnish his nephew with a like sum, in order to join him and enter into business. But the acknowledgment of Jacob that he had not saved a dollar, and that he kept no private account, settled the matter in the merchant's mind, as far as he was concerned.

About a month afterward, Jacob met his employer's nephew, who said,

"I am going into business."

"You are?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do?"

"Open a commission store."

"Ah! Can you get any good consignments?"

"I am to have the agency for a new mill, which has just commenced operations, beside consignments of goods from several small concerns at the East."

"You will have to make advances."

"To no great extent. My uncle has secured the agency of the new mill here without any advance being required, and eight hundred or a thousand dollars will be as much as I shall need to secure as many goods as I can sell from the other establishments of which I speak."

"But where will the eight hundred or a thousand come from?"

"My uncle has placed a thousand dollars at my disposal. Indeed, the whole thing is the result of his recommendation."

"Your uncle! You are a lucky dog. I wish I had a rich uncle. But there is no such good fortune for me."

This was the conclusion of Jacob Jones, who made himself quite unhappy for some weeks, brooding over the matter. He never once dreamed of the real cause of his not having had an equal share in his young friend's good fortune. He had not the most distant idea that his employer felt nearly as much regard for him as for his nephew, and would have promoted his interests as quickly, if he had felt justified in doing so.

"It's my luck, I suppose," was the final conclusion of his mind; "and it's no use to cry about it. Any how, it isn't every man with a rich uncle, and a thousand dollars advanced, who succeeds in business, nor every man who starts without capital that is unsuccessful. I understand as much about business as the old man's nephew, any day; and can get consignments as well as he can."

Three or four months after this, Jacob notified the merchant that he was going to start for himself, and asked his interest as far as he could give it, without interfering with his own business. His employer did not speak very encouragingly about the matter, which offended Jacob.

"He's afraid I'll injure his nephew," he said to himself. "But he needn't be uneasy—the world is wide enough for us all, the old hunks!"

Jacob borrowed a couple of hundred dollars, took a store at five hundred dollars a year rent, and employed a clerk and porter. He then sent his circulars to a number of manufactories at the East, announcing the fact of his having opened a new commission house, and soliciting consignments. His next move was, to leave his boarding-house, where he had been paying four dollars a week, and take lodgings at a hotel at seven dollars a week.

Notwithstanding Jacob went regularly to the post office twice every day, few letters came to hand, and but few of them contained bills of lading and invoices. The result of the first year's business was an income from commission on sales of seven hundred dollars. Against this were the items of one thousand dollars for personal expenses, five hundred dollars for store-rent, seven hundred dollars for clerk and porter, and for petty and contingent expenses, two hundred dollars; leaving the uncomfortable deficit of seventeen hundred dollars, which stood against him in the form of bills payable for sales effected, and small notes of accommodation borrowed from his friends.

The result of the first year's business of his old employer's nephew was very different. The gross profits were three thousand dollars, and the expenses as follows: personal expense, seven hundred dollars—just what the young man's salary had previously been, and out of which he supported his mother and her family—store-rent, three hundred dollars; porter, two hundred and fifty, petty expenses one hundred dollars—in all, thirteen hundred and fifty dollars, leaving a net profit of sixteen hundred and fifty dollars. It will be seen that he did not go to the expense of a clerk during the first year. He preferred working a little harder, and keeping his own books, by which an important saving was effected.

At the end of the second year, notwithstanding Jacob Jones' business more than doubled itself, he was compelled to wind up, and found himself twenty-five hundred dollars worse than nothing. Several of his unpaid bills to eastern houses were placed in suit, and as he lived in a state where imprisonment for debt still existed, he was compelled to go through the forms required by the insolvent laws, to keep clear of durance vile.

At the very period when he was driven under by adverse gales, his young friend, who had gone into business about the same time, found himself under the necessity of employing a clerk. He offered Jones a salary of four hundred dollars, the most he believed himself yet justified in paying. This was accepted, and Jacob found himself once more standing upon terra firma, although the portion upon which his feet rested was very small, still it was terra firma—and that was something.

The real causes of his ill success never for a moment occurred to the mind of Jacob. He considered himself an "unlucky dog."

"Every thing that some people touch turns to money," he would sometimes say. "But I wasn't born under a lucky star."

Instead of rigidly bringing down his expenses, as he ought to have done, to four hundred dollars, if he had had to live in a garret and cook his own food, Jacob went back to his old boarding-house, and paid four dollars a week. All his other expenses required at least eight dollars more to meet them. He was perfectly aware that he was living beyond his income—the exact excess he did not stop to ascertain—but he expected an increase of salary before long, as a matter of course, either in his present situation or in a new one. But no increase took place for two years, and then he was between three and four hundred dollars in debt to tailors, boot-makers, his landlady, and to sundry friends, to whom he applied for small sums of money in cases of emergency.

One day about this time, two men were conversing together quite earnestly, as they walked leisurely along one of the principal streets of the city where Jacob resided. One was past the prime of life, and the other about twenty-two. They were father and son,