Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1891 — A YOUTHFUL SPECULATOR. [ARTICLE]

A YOUTHFUL SPECULATOR.

He Corners the Shoestring Market and Makes 555.000 tn Three Months. A coterie of traveling salesmen in the lobby of the Palmer House, Chicago, were discussing the subject of fortunate investments and enterprises that have proved unusually profitable when one of the gentlemen remarked: “The queerest case that I ever knew of this kind was that of a boy at Andover, Mass. The youngster was the only son of an old cobbler who had mended shoes and boots all his life and had saved enough to buy a modest home and to lay up a small balance in the bank. The old man died awhile ago, leaving everything to his overgrown, gawky, shiftless son. “The latter never did a day’s work in his life, and as stoon as he found himself the possessor of the little shoe shop he at once commenced casting about for a purchaser. He soon converted his property into cash. Then he went down to a suburb of Boston to talk with the manager of a large factory that turns out abouj half of the shoestrings made in thin country. The youngster Contracted for the entire output of that shoestring factory for one year! Then he went to another large manufactory at Newark, N. J., and secured a similar contract. “These two institutions are the only shoestring factories in America. The shoestring business for the ensuing year had been cornered, excepting the goods that were already in the hands of wholesale shoe men in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. The young speculator invested his cash in buying up this stock, and within a few weeks had everything in his own hands. This was a corner which the trade had not foreseen. Shoe dealers throughout the country who had ordered their usual stock of goods were horror stricken to learn that there was a shortage in shoestrings. Well, now, shoestrings are very small things, but they are quite necessary to the shoe business. Within three months the Andover boy sold his contracts with the manufacturing concerns at a net profit of $55,000, and if he had had nerve enough to continue the fight he undoubtedly would have made double that amount.”—Chicago Mail.