Personifies.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, 17 September 1903, Page 2

Personifies.

MR. ALFBED BEIT. not yet fifty years of fj3J&| age, it is said that Mr. Beit, the 3&3k South African diamond kin/, is the ritheat man in England. Mr. Beit was not born with a silver spoon in his month A German merchant's son, at twenty years of age he fonnd himself, with no more money than an ordinary young man of good position, sitting oa a clerk's stool in a shipping offi je at H imbnrg. Though he was the heir-to his father's business he was in the offi je as a workman, mastering its xontine from the bottom to the top. Thirty-fire years ago the first diamond was picked in South Africa, and the shipping firm at Hamburg was one of the first to feel the boom Huge orders came in, and as the future of South Africa was then uncertain the firm sent out a representative to investigate. Mr. Bait was chosen, and at 22, after a ride of four hundred miles in a c irt. he found Kiinberley—a city of men who had come from all parts of the world to grow rich by the strike of the p ! ck. Mr. Beit had gone to South Africa to sae if it was 'safe'; he fouad it a land of gold and diamonds, and he has not forsaken it. His years of training in the shipping offica had not been wasted. The young man from Hamburg, forgetting the mission on which he had been sent out, set to work to organise the new industry, it was Mr. Beit who first re*!'sad the dagger of making diamonds too cheap, and by buying up scattered claims he obtained control of the market. From that time to this he has been making m ney faster than he could couatit. A FIGHTING LORD. Lieut.-General Lord Greofeli, who has left tee Governorship of Malta to command the Fourth v Army Corps, is one of the Coronation Peers, out his reputation is much older than the reign wn.'ob. has given him his title. He has seen most of the fighting in Egypt and th? Soudan for the last twenty years, was Sirdar before Kitchener, and helped to break the power, of; Arabi Pasha at Tel-el-Kebir. Lord Grenfell is in his third year as Governor of Malta, where his regime had a sad beginning through the death of his wife, the daughter of Geneial Bobert Wood. His niece has since presided over his table—or should it be his tables? For Lord Grenfell has a luxury which Governors rarely find in their residences He has three pa laces at his disposal: Yaletta Pukca, with its fine Soate rooms and its armoury and tapestries; San Antonio, a few miles outside Valetta, with its beiutiful gardens, where the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh held receptions when the Duke commanded in the Mediterranean; and Yerdala Palace, with sloping terra coa wh:'cb. lead into a glorious wood. A MOT OF MILLIONS. Senor Pedro Alvarado, the millionairephilanthropist who haß offered to pay the public debt of Mexico, has risen to wealth and power almost in a night. But a year or two ago he was a 'peon/ working «ith other men in tfee mines, with the familiar big hat of the Mexican miner on his head and sandals on his feet. To-day, 'he is rich beyond the dreanis cf avarice, and every year adds a new million to his vast estate. The discovery of a mine was the beginning of his rise, and the miae, situated at Parrali in the State of Chihuahua, has proved to be one of the largest ore producers in the country, with an output of about two thousand tons per day. The remarkable turn in the fortunes of Pedro Alvarado has been much more than a nine days' wonder in Mexico, where his fame spread abroad and his amazing use of his wealth startled his countrymen. The Government, is not likely, perhaps, to accept Senor Alvarado's offer to pay the nation's debts, but it would be at any rate a more judicious way of disposing of hia wealth than some of the means to which the mushroom millionaire is said to resort. Befusing to place his money in a bank, he keeps an armed guard, and invariably when walking in the street he is accompanied by eight armed men. Ona who knows him has said that he rarely leaves the housa without .£50,000 in his possession, asd so ready is he to get rid of his money that, being once struck by the wares of a travelling jeweller, he bought up his whole Btock for ,£3.000. Alvarado declares that his only object is to get rid of biß wealth as fast as it come? to him. He has built a hospital and a cathedral, both endowed and equipped with a lavish hand, and his charity in a hundred ways has been remarkable. Ho is building himself the finest private residence in Mtxico, which is to co3t half a million dollars in construction, and to be furnished with the best things that money can buy. SIB WM. HOENE. One of Canada's greatest millionaires, Sir Wm. Van Home, president of the Canadian Pacific Line, began life as an operator in a telegraph effice, and at 38 he was general manager of the longest railway line in the world. The difficulties encountered in the cor a traction of the line were enormous. The engineers had to ec ale worse than Alpine hills with ropes and alpen stocks, while at they camped, under mountain ledges. Daring one of the early surveys seven of them perished in a bush fire. On the part of line going to Lake Superior the expenditure in dynamite alone for the blastiag cperatioEß was over £300.000, and one temporary road ran into £190,000. Small wonder waa it that firm after firm failed in the endeavour to build the line. The cost of the main line alone was something like twenty '-millions aterling, but the woik was well done, and the trains on the ' Can. Pac.' generally managed to keep time even in the blizzard season. • Hard work,' says the president of this great concern, *is the one and only road to success.' Sir "William, by the way, is an American by birth, thcujh his name shows his Dutch origin. He is one of the leading ait collectors of Montreal, where he lives, and is said to be a clever thought reader-—a most useful accomplishment for a businees man. A PRACTICAL KOYAL DUCHESS. The Duchess of Fife can claim to belong to the practical order of Boyalties. Of an artistic bent of mind, she has designed the interiors cf many of the beautiful rooms at Mar Lodge, her residence in Aberdeenshire. As the eldest daughter of the King and Queen the Duchess seemed at one time not distantly removed from the Throne, but her Boyal Highness has not sought to emphasise her royal rank since her marriage. Taere are two Boyal Duchesses in England—or two Duchesses, perhaps, it should be said, who are of Boyal rank, and it ia odd that they both bear the same name. King Edward's sister, Princess Louise, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, became Ducheas of Argyll, and his own daughter, also Princess Louise, married the Duke of Fife. The princess might to-day have been Duchess of Inverness had the Duke not declined the title when offered to him , ca his wedding day. i