Obituary

Christmas Pie

Last week the stockholders of the Curtis Publishing Co. of Philadelphia (Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, etc.) cut their Christmas pie--one of the richest, meatiest pies since Little Jack Homer's. They voted themselves a Christmas dividend of $70,000,000 by approving the company's plan to increase the preferred stock from 200,000 to 900,000 shares and to distribute these shares (worth $70,000,000) among the holders of the 900,000 shares of common stock outstanding. This is one of the largest stock dividends ever declared. Its percentage is surpassed only by the famed 2,900% dividend of the Standard Oil Co. of Indiana, and a few other corporations chiefly of the Standard Oil interests.

TWo Manhattan brokerage firms last week offered 5,000 common shares of Curtis Publishing Co. at $310 a share.

The present circulation .of the Saturday Evening Post is 2,500,000, and of the Ladies' Home Journal 2,385,000.