W

HILE you are complaining of hard times, the other fellow is getting the orders.

There is sufficient power in one gram of radium to raise a battleship of 28,000 tons, one hundred feet in the air.

It costs the commercial concerns of the United States over $250,000 a year to correct errors in invoices and other papers due to poor writing.

There is one divorce for every seven marriages in Japan, one for every ten marriages in the United States, and one for every ten thousand in England.

The Woolworth Building, New York City, 792 feet, is the second highest structure on earth. The Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1000 feet, is the only thing that tops it.

Seventy-five years ago the word "democracy" was generally despised and hated throughout the world, as the word "socialism" is generally and ignorantly hated in this country now.

The motion-picture theaters of New York City recorded 310,000,000 paid admissions in 1920. In the same year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art recorded 800,000 free admissions.

A will of only three words, "All to Anna," disposing of $500 was filed recently in a New Jersey Court. It may not be the best way to leave property, but it is a good illustration of brevity.

The diameter of Betelguese, the big star in the constellation Orion, is 300,000,000 miles! The diameter of our earth is less than 8000 miles; the diameter of our sun is 866,000 miles.

The place of British coal is threatened in the world mart. From 1886 to 1918, the annual capacity of one miner in England fell from 312 to 226 tons; in the United States it rose from 400 to 770 tons.

A curious old form of oath, which bars those who have fought duels from holding office in the county or State, is still administered in Texas. The man elected has to swear he has never had any part in a duel.

A French statistician concludes that at the age of fifty the average man has slept 6,000 days, worked 6,500, walked 800, amused himself 4,000, spent 1,500 eating, and been ill only about 500 days or about 3 per cent of the time.

A prominent business man claims that we are wasting more, to-day, in this country than would equal our entire national debt before the World War, by our inefficiency, our extravagant ways of doing things, our unnecessary blunders and mistakes.

It takes a steady average production of 45,000,000 tons of bituminous coal a month to supply normal consumption in the United States, of which 15 per cent is used in homes, 30 per cent by railroads and the remainder in miscellaneous industry. In the first quarter of 1921 the monthly production did not average 30,000,000 tons.

The number of employees in the imperial administrative departments of Germany in 1914, before the World War, was 5,500. To-day there are 80,000, all receiving salaries, and these do not include those in the postal department and the railways. The postal service had 168,000 employees in 1914; it has on its salary roll to-day 420,000.

A visitor to the General Electric Company, Schnectady, New York, recently saw a device that raises a six-hundred-thousand candle light to twelve million candle-power by conserving hitherto wasted light beams. He heard discussed the use of "an invisible searchlight." It will be made possible by the use of infra-red rays, invisible to the human eye, to be used for sending radio messages for naval purposes, with no possibility of detection.

HE E may fail from lack of tact in introducing himself. He may fail from lack of confidence in himself. He may fail if he is slovenly in his dress and careless in his habits, because this leads other men to suspect that he is not prosperous and does not represent a firstclass concern.

He may fail if he speaks indistinctly or too rapidly or if he lacks ambition and earnestness.

He may fail because he indulges in awkward expressions and gestures or proceeds by undue familiarity. He may fail from lack of dignity.

He may fail because he does not answer questions and criticisms intelligently and concisely.

He may fail from inability to profit by his mistakes.

He may fail because he does not try to learn in advance, the characteristics of each man he meets. He may fail because he does not use the influence of his lists.

He may fail because he mis-reads his customer; is quick when he should be slow; is slow when he should be quick or because he talks too long or not long enough before telling his business and coming to the point.

He may fail because he does not have a full knowledge of or cannot describe what he is selling.

He may fail by neglecting to do or say one or more of a hundred different things in the right way. Also by doing or saying a wrong thing at the wrong time or in the wrong way. The excuse given is very seldom true.

B

NEW

Y the time this issue of THE NEW SUCCESS reaches its readers, either there will have been definitely offered, or arrangements will have been substantially completed for the offering of an issue of $230,000,000 par value Great Northern Northern Pacific "joint bonds," so-called.

This offering is of peculiar interest in several ways. It is not only the largest financial operation with which the investment market has had to do since the negotiation of the huge Government loans of the war period; but it is one of the largest, if not the very largest, single piece of corporation financing in the history of our development, It has been looked forward to, moreover, as an event likely to mark the turn for the better-in-general investment market conditions.

The purpose of the issue of the new bonds is to provide for the maturity, on July 1, of an issue of Great Northern-Northern Pacific joint 4 per cent bonds, secured by collateral in the form of Chicago, Burlington & Quincy stock. At the time of writing this comment, the details of the new issue have not all been officially announced. They have, however, been before the Interstate Commerce Commission for consideration and approval for some time. While possibly subject to some change, they may now be outlined substantially as follows:

The bonds will bear interest at the rate of 61⁄2 per cent per annum and will run for a period of fifteen years-to 1936. They will be the joint and several obligations of the Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway, and will have the following collateral as security: $164,000,000 odd, par-value stock of the

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; $33,000,000 par-value general mortgage 7 per cent bonds of the Great Northern Railway, maturing in 1961; and $33,000,000 refunding and improvement 6 per cent bonds of the Northern Pacific Railway, maturing in 2047. They will be convertible at the option of the holders at any time before 1936, at par, into the Great Northern 7 per cents which are not subject to redemption before maturity; or into the Northern Pacific 6 per cents which are subject to redemption at 110 up to July, 1936, except that the conversion privilege will cease when $115,000,000 par value in the aggregate of Great Northern or Northern Pacific bonds shall have been issued in exchange.

Without going into great detail, some idea of the security for the new 62 per cent bonds, as to principal and interest, may be conveyed by reference to the fact that the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy stock, alone, has a book value of about $200 a share or a total of over $330,000,000 for the amount deposited as collateral; that the equity for the bonds, represented by the stocks of the Great Northern and Northern Pacific, has a total value, at current market quotations, of about $347,000,000; and that the combined net earnings of the three railroads, available for interest on the bonds, has averaged in amount during the last few years sufficient to cover charges on the new issue two to three times over.

The old joint 4 per cent bonds which the new issue will replace have long enjoyed a very high investment rating, and are held in large amounts by institutions like insurance companies which follow the most conservative standards in the

employment of their surplus funds. Their market record, moreover, has been one of exceptional stability through good times and bad.

At about 962, the price at which it has been intimated the new 62 per cent bonds will be issued, the yield to maturity figures out about 68 per cent. An investment opportunity is thus afforded, which should prove exceptionally attractive, and it is the opinion of this magazine that some of the new bonds might well find a place among the holdings of all classes of investors, small as well as large.

During recent years, the difficulties of the companies furnishing local transportation facilities have been due, in the main, to the fact that their costs of operation have risen rapidly, while their income has been held rigidly within the limitations of their franchise contracts, prescribing, in most cases, five cents as the standard fare.

In a large number of instances, the public service commissions have interpreted these contracts liberally, and without opposition on the part of the municipal authorities, have granted the operating companies relief in the form of permission to charge higher fares. In other cases, efforts of companies in straightened circumstances to get away, temporarily at least, from the five-cent-fare handicap have resulted in opposition and the fighting of the issue in the courts.

Two cases of this kind were those of the companies serving San Antonio, Texas, and Fairfield, Iowa. In the one case, the Supreme Court affirmed decrees of the lower courts enjoining the city from enforcing a five-cent fare with universal transfers; and, in the other case, it set aside decrees of the lower courts restraining the company from increasing rates above those fixed in its franchise. In both cases, the Supreme Court held that a contract calling for a rate which could be shown to be confiscatory would not stand in law.

There are undoubtedly a good many other cases in which application of this just and reasonable interpretation by the court of final jurisdiction may not only serve to maintain the integrity of traction securities, but also save the companies from complete failure to render service adequate to the needs of their communities.