The dividends drawn yearly or half-yearly provide incomes for a very considerable number of people, and many by this provision are relieved from the necessity of earning a livelihood. Sometimes these dividends provide incomes for people quite incapable of earning a living for themselves. In other cases they supplement the incomes of hard-working professional men and women.

The incomes from dividends, when sufficiently large, are an assurance to their possessors that the material needs of this life shall be satisfied: that is, that money will be duly forthcoming to pay for necessary food, clothes, and house-room. It may even happen that the income from dividends alone will provide not only the bare necessities of life, but allow us to gratify the desire for pleasant comforts and joyful luxuries, without working.

Small wonder is it then that so great an attention is paid to this matter of dividends.