"Four times around the world. First, two years. Second, eighty days, '70. Third, sixty-seven and a half days, '90. Fourth, sixty days, shortest record, '92. Through psychic telepathy, am doubling age. Seventy-four years young." It may be a matter of surprise to some readers that I should have accomplished so much at the early age when so many of my most important enterprises were accomplished. It should be remembered, however, that I began young. I was a mature man at an age when most boys are still tied to their mothers' apron strings. I had to begin to take care of myself in very tender years. I suppose my experiences in New Orleans, on the old farm in Massachusetts, in the grocery store in Boston, and in the shipping house of Enoch Train and Company, matured and hardened me before my time. I was never much of a boy. I seem to have missed that portion of my youth. I was obliged to look out for myself very early, and was soon fighting hard in the fierce battle of competition, where the weak are so often lost. It may be worth while to present here some important evidence of the confidence that was reposed in me by experienced men, when, as a mere youth, I was undertaking vast enterprises that might have made older men hesitate. When I was about to leave Boston in '53 for business in Australia, and organized the house of Caldwell, Train and Company, I was authorized by the following well-established houses of this and other countries to use them as references, and did so on our firm circulars: John M. Forbes, John E. Thayer and Brother, George B. Upton, Enoch Train and Company, Sampson and Tappan, and Josiah Bradlee and Company, of Boston; Cary and Company, Goodhue and Company, Josiah Macy and Sons, Grinnell, Minturn and Company, and Charles H. Marshall and Company, of New York; H. and A. Cope and Company, of Philadelphia; Birckhead and Pearce, of Baltimore; J. P. Whitney and Company, of New Orleans; Flint, Peabody and Company, and Macondray and Company, of San Francisco; George A. Hopley and Company, of Charleston; Archibald Gracie, of Mobile; and the following foreign houses: Bowman, Grinnell and Company, and Charles Humberston, of Liverpool; Russell and Company and Augustine Heard and Company, of Canton. These were among the best known commercial houses in the world at that time. Any business man, familiar with the commercial history of the modern world, should consider this list fair enough evidence of the confidence I enjoyed among men of affairs. Let me reproduce here--partly as evidence along the same line, and partly because of the value I attach to it on personal and friendly grounds--the following letter from Mr. D. O. Mills: "NEW YORK, _September 30, 1901_. "Hon. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN, "_Mills Hotel, Bleecker St., New York_. "MY DEAR CITIZEN: