Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 305, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1910 — Country of Small Fortunes. [ARTICLE]

Country of Small Fortunes.

Equal distribution, liberty of work, the .responsibility which springs from It, the taste for thrift, which it engenders, the consciousness that each individual is the architect of his own fortune, have made France the country of small but numerous fortunes, says a writer in Moody’s Magazine. At the beginning of the last century the dividing up of landed property was t|ie chief manifestation of this division of wealth. The number of successions declarations has continued to grow. In 1906 there were declared 70 successions per 100 deaths of persons over twenty .years of age; 76 per 100 deceased persons Over thirty years of age; 84 per 100 deaths of persons over forty years. In 184 S there were 1,346,000 licensed traders And 1,842,500 In 1908. The latter figure includes the liberal professions. The number of licensed traders for commerce and industry amounted in 1908 to 1,720,000; that is to say, one license for every 23 Inhabitants.