People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice. - Harry Gordon Selfridge

To the Merchants and Men of Commerce throughout the entire world, or to those among them who love their calling and count themselves fortunate in being able to follow its intricate but fascinating paths—to those who look upon work as glorious and to be sought—who look upon idleness as unproductive and to be avoided—to those whose efforts are unitedly making the world busier, happier, richer, and more able to provide the good things of life, this volume is dedicated by The Author.

And the day of physical adventure is over. The day of the bold Phoenician, the fearless trader who with his caravan threaded his way into unknown lands; the day when the early English merchant-sailor trusted and risked his fortune in one small boat, and sought out markets and trading points in undiscovered corners of the earth—these days are gone for ever. The earth has all been "discovered," its lands and peoples are known, and its oceans charted. The merchant who desires to transact business abroad has at his call every detail of information regarding every country, island, or people.

Men of genius and wonderful nerve and determination, who in the Dark Ages would have been conquering princes, have... thrown their ability into Commerce and have conquered, not territory and slaves, but trade and its child, money, from any and every part of the world where trade was to be found.