A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON BUSINESS. "There is a tide in the affairs of men, Is bound in shallows and in miseries." GET, SAVE, SPEND, GIVE, LEND, AND BEQUEATH MONEY: WITH AN INQUIRY INTO THE CHANCES OF SUCCESS AND CAUSES BY EDWIN T. FREEDLEY. ALSO, PRIZE ESSAYS, STATISTICS, MISCELLANIES. AND NUMEROUS PRIVATE LETTERS FROM SUCCESSFUL HF 5351 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by EDWIN T. FREEDLEY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PREFACE. "THE wisdom touching negotiation, or business, hath not been hitherto collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning and the professors of learning. *For if books were written of this, as the other, I doubt not but learned men, with mean experience, would far excel men of long experience without learning, and outshoot them with their own bow.”BACON's Adv. of Learning. Ir needs no long experience, I think, to convince any one that men engaged in active business need all the information they can get to manage their concerns with success; nor does it require a world-wide observation to discover that not a few purchase their knowledge at the price of their fortune and reputation. Impressed with this conviction, I determined, some months ago, to take advantage of the leisure accidentally afforded me to see what landmarks had been set up, and to know how much could be learned respecting a matter so important as business, by means less costly and more pleasant than the severe teachings of experience. On looking through the records within my reach, I found a good deal that I considered valuable, and which I was satisfied that all who are engaged in business do not know, though doubtless many know the whole of it and much more. It seemed to me that, by separating that which was useful and practical from the mass of irrelevant matter with which it was mixed up, and arranging it in an interesting and instructive shape, with the addition of some facts entirely within my own possession, I could do some service to those for whom I entertain a higher respect than for any other class of men in the world—I mean the active, intelligent business men of the country-and especially to those who are fitting themselves for business pursuits. Whether the attempt is a happy one, |