All documents connected with investments should be carefully preserved, and dividends, when they fall due, should be looked after. It seems unnecessary to say so, but it is a curious fact that, to speak of the public funds alone, a large sum is added every year to the revenue from unclaimed dividends. No stock is reckoned unclaimed till ten years have elapsed without the holder in any way giving token of his or her existence; and yet in 1879 the amount credited to the item of “unclaimed dividends” for the year ending 3rd January, 1880, was no less than £3,411,228! The principal reason for this, no doubt, is carelessness; but Mr. Walter M. Playford, in his “Hints for Investors,” gives several other reasons which are likely enough. Dividends are often unclaimed through the misconception of people who have sold stock. They think they have sold with it a dividend, or a portion of a dividend, to which they were themselves entitled. Then, executors and administrators are often unable to claim stock, because those they represent have kept their investments secret from their nearest friends. And a good deal of money is not unfrequently lost through the objectionable practice of investing under a false name. The current prices of all the more important stocks for sale are chronicled day by day in the newspapers. It is a department never omitted in any well-regulated journal, even though it forms the driest-looking column in the paper. It is full of figures and tables of figures, preceded by a few paragraphs, of a very stereotyped aspect, and written in language peculiar to itself. We read therein that “the market is easier,” or that “it assumed a more lively appearance,” or that “it showed a falling tendency,” or “great depression,” or that “its tone remained very steady all day.” We also read of “prices hardening a little,” of “heavy stocks being inactive,” of “foreign securities being quiet,” and grow familiar with “Wabash Preferred,” “Nickel Plate Common Stock,” “Spanish Externals,” “Egyptian Unifieds,” and many other things hard to be understood by the uninitiated. It is a much-studied column, and it is surprising what interest and entertainment can be extracted from these daily reports of the health and spirits of the money market if it only takes the trouble to master the peculiar vocabulary. The principal terms connected with the investment of money we shall set down here, with a few words of explanation for each. A business woman—no matter whether she has money to invest or not—should at least know what they mean. _The Money Market_ is a more or less figurative expression, covering the whole field for the investment or employment of money, the leading dealers in the market being bankers, bill discounters, and capitalists of all sorts. Money is _cheap_ or _dear_ in the market according as the rates for discount are low or the reverse; and business is _brisk_ or _flat_, according as the amount of such discounts is large or small.