very poor, and he was the
youngest of thirteen children. He was never at school; the only
education he received he gave to himself; and to the last he was only
able to write with difficulty. When a boy, he was apprenticed to a
barber, and after learning the business, he set up for himself in
Bolton, where he occupied an underground cellar, over which he put up
the sign, "come to the subterraneous barber--he shaves for a penny."
The other barbers found their customers leaving them, and reduced
their prices to his standard, when Arkwright, determined to push his
trade, announced his determination to give "A clean shave for a half-
penny."

At the close of his life, John Jacob Astor was the wealthiest man in
the United States, and the immense fortune he left has been largely
increased through his wise investments and the habits of business
which he seems to have transmitted with his fortune to his
descendants.

His life is a most interesting one, particularly to the young man who
stands facing the world without friends or fortune to aid him. But
young Astor had one quality to start with, a quality which success
never lessened, and that was the capacity for unceasing industry.

He was born of peasant parents in the village of Waldorf, near the
great university town of Heidelberg in Germany. When sixteen years of
age he was crowded out of the hive by increasing brothers and
sisters, and without education or experience, he started out to make
his way in the world.

In the days of his great prosperity, he used to tell, with delight
mingled with sadness, of the day when he left father, and mother, and
home, which he was never to see together again. He used to say: "I
had only two dollars in my pocket, and all my clothes were tied up in
a handkerchief fastened at the end of a stick. When I had climbed the
high hill above the village, I sat down to rest my heart rather than
my feet, and to look back at the loved scenes of my childhood. Before
leaving home it was decided that I should make my way to London--then
the city of promise to many young Germans. While I sat there, I made
three resolutions, which during my life I have never broken. I had
never gambled, but I had known others to do so, and my first resolve
was not to follow their example. The second resolution was to be
strictly honest in all my dealings, and this I have tried to adhere
to. The third resolution was quite as important as the other two
together; it was