Page 4 Advertisements Column 6

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3752, 22 January 1898, Page 4

BARNEY BARNATO. ! r " There is nothing that South \ Africa produces that I have not ! traded in — from diamonds and gold i right away through wool, feathers and mealies, to garden vegetables, and I have always found that I was a good as hand at buying and selling as most people I came across." In this remark of Barney Barnato's, taken from the recently published , story of his life, lies the secret of his ! success. He was thorough in all be did, he did not despise small things, and turned bis hand to anything that was going, except ' manual labour, which he seems to have let other people do for him. A good deal of legend has gathered round Barnato's debut in South Africa, although that occurence took place only a little more than twenty years ago. As a matter of fact there was nothing very romantic about it. His father — Barnato's real name was Isaacs — kept a little general dealer's 1 shop somewhere in the vicinity oE ; Aldgate, and made a competency in it, and when his son, the future Barney, determined to go to the South African diamond fields, he carried with him £100. Barnato was in no mind to dig for diamonds himself, he preferred to go round the claims and buy them from the diggers, and from the humble beginning necessitated by his very small capital, he rose in a few years to be the possessor of an income not ■ much short of £100,000, and one of the two Diamond Kings of South Africa, Mr Cecil Rhodes being the other. He began business with one ; Louis Cohen, the total capital of the ' firm being less than £100 in cash owned by Cohen, and sixty boxes of cigars, owned by Barnato, and he lived to see a tremor run through the Stock Exchange of London at a rumour of his ill-health. It is well known that be was a successful amateur actor, but it is news to hear that "so long as he was cast for Mathias, in • The Bells,' Kimberley audiences cared little who else filled the bill." It is also of interest to learn that he was superstitious. He never turned back in the street if he could possibly help it, unless he had by accident passed a blind man. If on leaving bis house he found he had forgotten some important papers he would never go back, even if he had only a few yards, but would send for them from his office ; and he was repeatedly seen to rush across crowded streets, dodging cabs and carts, to give a blind man sixpence. Probably, also be had borrowed the sixpence from a friend, for he was often without any money in his pooket. COMPENSATION. There are checks and balances in everything. Motion is the law of life. Nothing is absolutely at rest. Stagnation means death, but death is only a relative term. It is the beginning of a new existence. New changes are inaugurated ; motion occurs along new lines or recurs along old ones, " and the wheel go around unceasingly." Science tells us that action and reaction are always equal. Just as far as the clock pendulum will swing to one side it will swing back to the other. The earth alternately approaches and recedes from the sun. The law of compensatisn rules in the physical world. The lives of men abound in compensations of ore kind or another. The child soon learns that if it eats its cake it cannot keep it ; the man who is industrious and frugal find his compensations in accumulation against want, penury, and the rainy day. The miser who denies himself the common necessities and comforts of life in order to add to his stock of gold finds his only compensation in handling the shining coins in his shrurken hands and claw -like fingers. The illusions of youth are dispelled by the knowledge of later years, but conscious knowledge is sufficient compensation. Seasons change, times change, and men change with them, but every new departure carries with it forces which will ultimately arrest its progress and give it a momentum in the opposite direction. The progress of mankind is on the whole onward and upward, but the line is not an unbroken one. The dark ages succeeded to the fine civilisations of Greece and Rome. Prescott says in his history of Peru that the Spanish invaders overthrew a better civilisation than they left behind them What was gained in one direction was lost in another. What is lost in one direction is gained in another. Compensation is the rule in the affairs of men. What shall be said of the gems "of purest ray serene," and the unsown flowers that " waste their sweetness on the desert air" ? How about the rare talents that find no opportunity tor exercise and usefulness ? What of the Wely characters that are prevented by oircumstances from coming into the b'ossom and fruitage designed for them, ard which is justly their due ? What of the mothers' prayers and tears and agonisings, which are without answer or compensation in this life ? What of the hero who sacrifices himself for others ? What of the hopes and aspirations that are born only to be crushed and trampled in the mire ? Do not these or other things afford at least a strong presumption of immortality ?— of another existence in wh'ch opportunity will be greater and better for those who have been denied the full exercise of the powers in this life, where each shall be judged and rewarded not only according to the deeds done in the body, but also according to that which they might have accomplished had the opportunities and circumstances of tbeir lives been more favorable? It is not always the most successful from the world's standpoint who are the mosl; deserving. The one who fails, despite the bost efforts, is something the greatest victor. The law of compensation, let us hope, holds good in all the providence of (rod, and is not limited to this )ite only. — Contibutor to Dunedin Star. SANDERSON'S SCOTCH." Established 1896. Original blenders of Whisky in bond. DIADEM TOBACCO. T. P Williams' Finest Aromatic.