HALF A MILE FROM THE TRACK!

You have a very small chance to draw money in a lottery, and it is a very foolish thing to throw away earnings buying tickets—­yet of two fools who expected to draw the grand prize, that one would be the greatest who had no ticket in the lottery!  The man of success wants something to strike around his premises.  He, therefore, has got conductors of the celestial fluid on his house, and on his barns.  His chicken-coops, his corn-cribs point to heaven, and even the stumps in his back yard

BRISTLE WITH LIGHTNING-RODS.

Clap! comes the bolt; the man of success is the one who has been hit, and those persons who do not understand it are astonished at his luck!  The man of success is a stone; there are a number of eggs who are bent on dancing in the same cotillon with him; they think he has great luck to last through to such music!  The man of success is a thoroughbred; his sire won a Derby; all the drayhorses believe that, when this lucky thoroughbred runs,

THE EARTH MOVES BACKWARD

beneath his feet, to help him in overcoming distance!  The man of success is a lightning calculator; the spectators all think he is a lucky fellow to guess at the sum of a great block of figures so quickly and always guess right; they never could do it!

“LUCK” SAYS RICHARD COBDEN,

“is ever waiting for something to turn up.  Labor, with keen eyes and strong will, will turn up something.  Luck lies in bed, and wishes the postman would bring him the news of a legacy.  Labor turns out at six o’clock, and with busy pen or ringing hammer lays the foundation of a competence.  Luck whines.  Labor whistles.  Luck relies on chance.  Labor on character.”  The man of success who owns a mill is seen in the water up to his waist, dragging a log behind him.  “Is he not lucky to get his dam fixed so soon after the flood!” say the neighbors.  The man of success who owns a grocery has got ten barrels of flour on the sidewalk, two casks of petroleum in the alley, and twelve barrels of sugar on his trucks.  At night the barrels are all in their places, and, so far as I have ever seen,—­in the retail business, at least,—­it was not the clerks of the man of success who did

THE HEAVY END OF THE LIFTING.

“I never” says Addison, “knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings, and strictly honest, who complained of bad luck.  A good character, good habits, and iron industry are impregnable to the assaults of all the ill-luck that fools ever dreamed of.”  “Strong men believe in cause and effect,” says Emerson.  “There are no chances so unlucky,” says Rochefoucauld, “that people are not able to reap some advantage from them, and none so lucky that the foolish are not able to turn them to their own disadvantage.”