HOW TO MAKE MONEY

Evening Star, Issue 20582, 6 September 1930, Page 5

HOW TO MAKE MONEY

A BIOGRAPHY OF J. J. ASTOR, “THE LANDLORD OF NEW YORK " ' The name of Astor is well known in most countries, and in America to-day Joint Jacob Astor. the founder of the “American Fur, Company” and' the “ landlord of New York,” is an almost legendary figure. America is a country of millionaires: Astor was the greatest of thorn all. In ‘John Jacob Astor ’ the. story of this remarkable man has been told by Mr Arthur 1). Howdon Smith. Those readers who are anxious to acquire a fortune with reasonable rapidity are now afforded the opportunity of profiting by his example. The son of a Gorman peasant. Astor was born at Wald Dorf—“the village in the wood ’’ —near Heidelberg, in 17G3, and received his early education from Valentino Jcunc, a Huguenot refugee. As a boy he worked on his father's farm, but at the age of twenty ho had sailed for America to make his fortune, carrying with him twenty-five dollars in English coin and seven ilutes. Those flutes were to prove useful. Ho inaugurated a successful commercial career by venturing out into the American- forests and playing them to the Indians in order to secure the lowest prices on pelts. “At night he was fortunate if he might share the hearth of a settler’s cabin or scratch (leas with the inmates of an Indian’s bark lodge. As often as not ho slept beneath tho stars, fir houghs for his couch, a hastily-contrived lean-to for roof. Wherever he wont he was keen for a bargain. No trade was too small for him. He’d dicker half an hour for a muskrat skin, dole out tho beads or needles and thread which were his price, and be off onco more, whistling cheerily.” Thus did Astor lay the foundations o! Ins enormous fortunes. The success which he so covcled was not long in coming. He established a prosperous fur trade, imposed himself upon the aristocratic society of New York, bought up tho Broadway, became the owner of a fleet of trading vessels, and died, a millionaire, at tho ago of eighty-four.