THE MISERY OF THE RICH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 815, 30 November 1877, Page 3

THE MISERY OF THE RICH.

—o—- “ Your newspapers make a great fuss,” said one of the wealthiest men in New York to a “ World” reporter, “about the suffering of the poor man during the hard times, but I don’t see that any of them notice particularly fie diabolical distress of the rich man.” The reporter wasn’t aware that the rich man suffered at all. “ That,” said he of the wealth, “ is because you don’t anything about it. Why, sir, I undergo know more [actual absolute torture in an hour than any poor wretch in this city. If I hadn’t a cent in the world, I’d lave soma sympathy, and some assistance. As it is I’m hounded to death. I’m despised, beset, annoyed, condemned, backbitten, waylaid. The papers write editorials about me. If 1 go to church, I am told that a camel can get through the eye of a needle slicker than I can get into heaven. If 1 don’t dress my family in an extravagant manner, 1 hear that lam an old skinflint—-If I do, lam told that all 1 think of my money is to make a vulgar show with it. I supposed that 1 worked as hard as any man for more than two-thirds of my life to accumulate a fortune. but I believe that most people think 1 ought to give it away and comurence over again. In a winter like this you’ve no idea of the hardships of the rich. If I help all the people who apply .to me I might as well go to the poorhonse, and yet all of them expect it, and most of them, 1 dare say. are worthy. It’s out of the question. So they curse me, I suppose. All the benevolent societies, charities, public institutions, and church organisations have their agents out. I am waited upon by committees, runners, clergymen, and secretaries. Thev send me a half bushel of letters a day. They drop upon me in most unexpected places. They get into my private office. They wait in my private library before 1 am un. They sit on my front steps. They follow me into the horse-cars. What is a man to do ? If I let them have their way ray name will he paraded as if 1 wanted to advertise my charities. If I don’t the press will want to know what he has ever done for New York The other day a reporter came to see me about my will. He said the public would like to he informed ns to the proposed disposition of my property at mv decease. I suppose, if I were to get a child in my head, there’d he a brigade quartered under my windows. I begin to think a rich man is a disgrace to the community-that somehow I have committed a crime. I don’t like to look a m.-in squarely in the face for fear of hatred of mo will show itself, or he will stop and ask me to lend him a thousand dollars to get his starving family some fond to eat. I tell yon, sir, this winter is awful hard on a rich man. He dosn’t even eat his dinner in peace. How can he, when there arc 40,000 who are dinnorless ? His money begins to he a reproach to him and he feels as it he’d like to give the whole of it away in one lump, and try the luxury of of being poor for a while. But yon needn’t sav anything about that, nr I’ll have afresh battalion here to-morrow, and half the idlers in town will he writing me letters. In fact, I wouldn’t «ay anything about it, if I were you, but it’s a fact that the rich man suffers in hard winter a good deal mnre than the poor man. You take my word for it. And the poor don’t pity him a bit.”—New York World.