Bonuses

That sweetening of labor which is a salary bonus sifted unexpectedly and in unusual ways upon three working groups last week. In Manhattan, each employe of the First National Bank discovered one morning a novel mid-year gift, an unexpected bonus equal to his entire year's salary. At the end of a year every bank employe expects some kind of bonus. It is his wage gamble against usually meagre salaries. This bonus was different. It was the personal gift of the bank's board chairman, George Fisher Baker, to 148 clerks and junior officers. It approximated $350,000, repeated a similar donation Mr. Baker had made in 1910, upon his 70th birthday. This time there seemed no especial occasion, unless to denote his going on a European vacation in this, his 86th* year or to mark his 63rd year with the bank, on July 25. At Rochester, N. Y., 13,269 employes of the Eastman Kodak Co., received $2,786,165 in one broad bonus--more than $200 each. At Luling, a small oil town of south central Texas, on an upper fork of the Guadalupe river, there was a wild rush to buy new automobiles. The United North & South Oil Co. of the locality had just been sold for $12,100,000, of which its Promoter Edgar B. Davis was giving away in bonuses $2,000,000. Some individuals received as much as $200,000 each.

*His financial compeer, John Davison Rockefeller Sr., was 87 years old last week.