For a conservative reliable judgment upon any given investment, I can not too highly recommend a consultation with one's banker. By that I do not mean with the broker or investment man who has stocks or bonds to sell, but with an official of one's savings-bank, or the ordinary commercial bank or trust company where you keep your checking account. Not only does the official of such a bank possess good judgment and facilities forgetting reliable information, but he will treat your case as confidential; you may be sure of that. Thousands of people with bank-accounts fail to take their bankers into their confidence enough. People would save millions of dollars if they consulted their bankers before placing their money in risky ventures.

A great many people write to me and ask for the name of some one book that will tell them all about every stock and bond. There is no such book. Newspapers give lists of stocks and bonds, and a great many persons would find what they want in the newspapers if they would only read them more carefully. The papers in the larger cities, especially in New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia give a great many different kinds of stock quotations and other information of a detailed character.

Look around you a bit. See how rich men invest. Notice the appraisals of big estates, not only for suggestions of what to buy but equally for sharp reminders of what to avoid. Rich men make plenty of mistakes. By running over a score of these lists any sensible person will see what securities to avoid.

If you have no time to study investment subjects, at least take the trouble to inquire what the savings-banks of your state are permitted to place their funds in. In a few sentences you will learn the accumulated financial wisdom of whole legislatures, committees on banking and numerous banking experts who have for years testified before those committees. It does not follow that you must place your funds in exactly the same way the savings-banks do. But you will learn some of the fundamental laws governing the subject. Don't be so foolish as to overlook general, universal experience.

In New York State, which has by far the largest amount of savings deposits, the only legal investments, practically speaking, are first mortgages on real estate for not more than sixty per cent. of the value, government, state and municipal bonds, and first mortgage bonds of steam railroads of a certain size, if dividends of at least four per cent. have been paid for a number of years and no default has taken place on any obligation.