Some Golden Plums–What Electrical Experts Get–The Confidential Man–Rapid Rise of an Advertising Agent–Editors in Clover–Railroad Presidents Come High–A $25,000 Engineer–The Paying Berths in Medicine–Some Astonishing Lawyers’ Fees–What Vanderbilt Paid a Steamboat Man.
There are some positions in which enormous salaries are paid. They are, of course, places where great responsibilities are incurred. Strange as it may seem, however, occupations where thousands of human lives are imperiled are not compensated at so high a rate as those where great finances are at stake. Here are a few of the golden plums:
994. ELECTRICAL EXPERTSThe use of electricity has so increased in the last few years, and so many new uses have been found for it, that there are to-day nearly fifty different departments of human labor where it is employed, and naturally these have differentiated as many kinds of electricians. A young man in a New York establishment says “I am in receipt of a salary of $4,000 as superintendent of the dynamo building, and recently I had an offer of $7,000 to go with a new company out West.”
995. THE CONFIDENTIAL MANAnother man in New York began his career in a store at wages of only $7 a week. He is now the firm’s confidential man, who decides on all important purchases, and receives a salary of $8,000 a year.
996. THE ADVERTISING AGENTThe advertising agency is from a financial standpoint the most important department in the make-up of a paper or periodical. On one of our most popular magazines there is to-day a young man hardly over thirty years of age who has advanced through the various grades of work until he is now superintendent of the advertising department, receiving a remuneration of $7,000 a year.
997. GREAT DAILY EDITORSEditors of leading departments in our great dailies receive from $2,000 upward. Managing editors and editors-in-chief receive many times that sum. One man in the New York _Sun_ office has for his services a salary of $15,000, and besides this does outside literary work to the amount of $5,000 yearly.
998. MEDICAL SPECIALISTSThere is still “room at the top” of the medical world. The largest harvests are reaped by those who devote themselves to particular parts of the human framework, and at last are able to set up as “consulting physicians.” One doctor, whose apartments are crowded daily, informed the author of this work that he was treating eleven hundred and fifty patients. The celebrated Dr. Loomis for some time before his death made $50,000 a year.
999. LEGAL COUNSELORSWhat is true of medicine is equally so of the law. Specialists in such branches as real estate, legacies, insurance, etc., are in receipt of immense revenue. Celebrated bar-pleaders also have grown rich. The names of Rufus and Joseph Choate, of Wm. Evarts and Ben. Butler, are examples of men who have received single fees of $10,000. One young lawyer says: “I began seven years ago and during this period my earnings, with their investments, amount to $200,000.” Legal talent is also liberally paid for by the great corporations, all of which employ at a regular salary one or more attorneys.
1,000. CORPORATION PRESIDENTSPresidents of banks receive from $5,000 to $50,000; of insurance companies, there are at least three which pay their presidents $50,000; of railroad presidents, one receives $100,000, three receive $50,000, eight receives $20,000, and twelve $10,000.
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In other occupations, deep-water divers are paid at the rate of $10 an hour and fractions thereof; circus managers, $5,000 a year; and the buying man of great mercantile firms about the same. Bank cashiers get from $4,000 to $7,000; custom house officers from $3,000 to $7,000; judges of city courts (New York), $6,000; lecturers from $10 to $200 per night; preachers, from $20,000 in John Hall’s pulpit to a pitiful $300 in some country town; school principals from $1,500 to $3,000. Among exceptional salaries may be mentioned that of a steamboat manager of the Vanderbilt lines on the Mississippi, who once received $60,000 a year; also the engineer of a large manufactory, who is paid $25,000. “Is not that high?” inquired a visitor at the works. “He is cheap for us,” was the reply, illustrating the truth that talent and skill are everywhere and always in demand. The concern could not afford to lose him to rival firms who wanted his services, and so found it cheaper to retain him even at that high figure.
