Personal Earnings

The newspapers are recording the fact that Mr. H. M. Flagler gave Dr. George Shelton, of New York, $87,000, voluntarily, as a fee for medical services to hia daughter. Forty years ago this would have made a large fortune for any man, one that he would have feit justifled in retiring from business on. But the valuo of personal services and fees has grown with everything else in recent years. It is interesting to note what vast sums professional people hare earned simply by their personal labore, without counting business investments of any kind. Patti, the only Patti, has undoubtedly cleared a couple of millions by that wondroua bird warbling of hers. Nobody who ever lived has earned so much. Bernhardt, Booth and Joseph Jefïerson have each rounded up a million dollars iuring their professional careers. So probably has Henry Irving. It ís said that Henry Ward Beecher earned a milllon in his lifetimo froni preaching, lecturing and writing. Among doctora and lawyers, too, the :mms earned by those in the first rank ire enormous. Gen. Butler"s law praclice aruounts to f rom $150,000 to $200,000 very year. In one single case he received a fee of $100,000. Col. Ingersoll's law practice brings hún in 75,000 a year. The earnings of one law flrm in New York, Butler, Stillman & Hubbard, foot up $950,000. The head of this flrm is William Allen Butler, who wrote the poem of "Flora McFlimsy." He dropped into poetry in hiï youth, but wisely dropped out again and into something tliat paid vastly better. Helping people quarrel is a far more paying investment than rhyma stringing. The business of this law flnn is chiefly the reorganLzation of railroads. They sometimes receive $50,000 for ono fee. Among doctors the figures are not so high, but still there aro millionaires among theni, too. Dr. William A. Hammond had f or niany years, in New York, an annual practica worth $45,000. He will still retain tuuch of it, now that ha has gone to reside in Washington, "as a matter of sentiment." In business the sums earned are equally large. The president of the New York Life Insurance company has a salary of $50,000. The Equitable Life Insurance company pays its president $100,000 a year. Several raüroad presidenta get 150,000. A New York house that makes a specialty of the sale of roasted coffee pays it3 buyer $50,000 a year. He savea that much to them. Tho general manager of a varnish house in Brooklyn also receives $50,000 a year. So that it pays better in tho long run to have a successful private business than to be president.