624
THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
vidual without infringing upon those of others, is not to be found in any one of these books, or in any few. So that, practically, the wisdom concerning the laws and their operations that are a constant menace to those controlling large business interests, is inaccessible to the multitude, except as it is gained in that great democratic free school, experience, which numbers many sorrowing graduates.
If a lawyer may be considered fully educated and equipped for his work when he has mastered enough legal lore to know where to find the information that he is in quest of at the right time and moment, what can be expected of those without any special training? And in none of the affairs of life, affecting our material interests is the maxim that half knowledge is worse than ignorance so applicable as in law.
With the importance which is now accorded to women in the financial as well as the social world, an importance which establishes a distinct and separate individuality in the body politic from a business and legal standpoint, a most perplexing problem with regard to her signature has arisen. It can not then be repeated too often that the signature of a woman, whether plain, simple or complex, in all business and legal transactions, from the signing of a communication, a check, a deed or a mortgage to the signing of a will, should be written plainly and fully, and with nothing added to or taken from. The addition or omission of a single letter, the changing from full name to initials, or substituting the husband’s, causes confusion and, in cases of real estate transfers, may work harm.
Women in business affairs maybe divided into three classes: the over-credulous and improvident, the over-suspicious and miserly, with a small surplus or remnant of conservatives, with clear business heads and quick insight that render their judgment almost unerring, that may be called the saving grace.
Col. Mullberry Sellers is a typical American character, and flourishes more or less fully developed in all our communities. The number of schemes that are continually being hatched by these fertile financial geniuses for splendid gains on a small amount of invested capital would be amusing if they did not in so many instances draw hard earned dollars into the vortex of destruction.
The members of the second class have no confidence in money-making schemes of any kind, and are never caught in any of the delusive snares. They are afraid of real estate investments; banks they are morally certain are not safe, and the traditional stocking becomes the place of deposit for many of these cautious souls until some friend or acquaintance, in whom they have perfect confidence, is found, who will undertake the management of their savings, thus relieving them of further anxiety. Who can estimate the tears that have been shed, the bitter anguish that has been caused to thousands of confiding women after finding that their little savings have been swallowed up in hazardous speculations, or swept away by dishonest practices, leaving them absolutely without redress.
The members of the third or remnant class, however, conduct their business on the same business principles that successful men do. They are not afraid of banks, because they know that their soundness or unsoundness depends upon the business capacity of the men who manage them. Before investing in stocks or making large deposits in any one of them, they will investigate its condition, its resources, its management, and then, when a panic is threatened, will not precipitate it by withdrawing their deposits. They know that there is no more safe or satisfactory way of making investments than upon farm mortgages, but they will, before making a loan upon such security, take the precaution to examine the title to the property under consideration to see that no cloud hangs over it, and they will inquire into the character and standing of the local agent with whom they are »dealing. They will further, if the loan is made in a state remote from the one in which they live, ascertain all the law governing such transactions in the particular state, for in some they are specially favorable to the debtor. Then if the loan is made only up to the one-half or two-thirds standard of value, nothing worse can happen than to come into possession of the land, which does not burn and can not be spirited away.