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WILLIAM O. ALLISON, OF ENGLEWOOD, N. J. 285
ful to him, and I doubt if such a befriending was ever more
liberally rewarded, than was hers by the character which she
saw develop into manhood, no less than by the devotion
which he accorded to her. His middle name. Cutis, was
adopted by him to gratify a fancy of Mrs. Dana's that his
initials should correspond to those of her nom de plume.,
" Olive A. Wadsworth."
In 1868 young Allison entered the office of the Financial
Chronicle and the Daily Bulletiti, which was owned by Mr.
Dana, and the brother of Mrs. Dana, Mr. John G. Floyd,
and he there gained a general and thorough knowledge of
the publishing business. With this knowledge, and possess-
ing keen business instincts, he developed in a few years ,into
the best reporter of commercial markets that has ever been
on the New York press, and instituted a system of thoroughness
in reports which had previously been unknown and
which few reporters have been able to successfully copy.
From a salary of $1 per week, which he received when he
entered Mr. Dana's emplo}^ he reached inside of three years
a salary of $40 per week as a reporter ; but this rapid progress
did not satisfy his ambition even for the time, and
on October 21, 1871, as a result of the confidence which he
felt in his system of making a specialty of a few markets and
doing them thoroughly, he issued the first number of the
0«7, Faint and Drug Reporter. The early issues of the
Reporter were in the form of a small four-page paper of
extremely modest appearance as compared with other papers
alread}^ prominent in the industries to which it was devoted,
but contained more of real value to the subscribers than the
conductors of any other sheets had possessed sufficient com-
prehension of the possibilities of market reporting
to fur-
nish. The growth of the paper in circulation was remarkable,
and its advertising patronage, in connection with added
departments of valuable reading matter, was sufficient to
force numerous successive enlargements. But it was only
after a hard struggle of several 3'^ears that the plucky young
publisher saw the fulfilment of the hope he entertained at
the beginning of his career, that he should some day make
five thousand dollars per year. From this point, however, the
successful growth of the paper is, I believe, without any parallel
in commercial journalism, and the Reporter soon became
one of the most profitable class publications in the country,
and exerted an influence in the trades to which it was allied
such as no other commercial publication has ever wielded.
This influence was the direct result of the policy of obtain-