THE TRAGEDY OF MILLIONAIRES

Shannon News, 8 March 1927, Page 3

THE TRAGEDY OF MILLIONAIRES

WORLD'S WEALTHIEST MEN WHO CANNOT EAT A SQUARE MEAL. It is all very well to sigh for tho millionaire's bank balance; but if you get it ,you may spend the rest of your life sighing for a good, square meal. * ... •' Cannot estimate my fortune," said John D. Rockefeller, "I am told it is over £50,000,0000, but I would cheerfully give it un if only I could enjoy a good meal." The Oil King, who has lived to the age of eighty-three, has all his life been tho victim of acute indigestion, and has had to be satisfied with ameagre diet of biscuits and milk. Rising very early in the morning, Rockefeller has a drink of buttermilk as a beginning of his dreary day. The temptation of crisp bacon and fried eggs, luxuries that any working man can command, has to be put aside ,and, worth over fifty millions, John Rockefeller goes hungry from dawn to night, taking his allotted exercise to preserve the health he has, and drinking his buttermilk and eating his biscuits, sparely, less fortunate, in spite of his immense fortune- .than the servants who wait on his lightest wish. There are times when he longs for one good, square meal of beef and cabbage and potatoes, but his appetite has to be restrained, and he goes hungry on his biscuits and milk. The greatest stomach specialists have attempted to cure him, but in vain. Henry Ford. The world's richest man, Henry Ford, has said good-bye to real luxury for many years, and lives pro- - bably more simply than any ordinary workman in his factory. Doctors watch him to ensure that he carries out the rigid rules of dietary and exercise on which his health depends, and the lean, sparo little man who represents 'more wealth than any other living person, gets little or nothing out of it himself—except the satisfaction of amassing yet more money with each new enterprise. J. Pierpont Morgan. Owner of the world's finest art collection, J. Pierpont Morgan, the great financier, lives as rigid and simple a life as any city clerk. After a very plain breakfast he leaves home to arrive at his office at ten o'clock punctually, has a lunch at which the ordinary city man would turn up his nose ,and, sticks to work till half-paot five in the evening. His father, J. Pierpont Morgan, senior, was for years compelled to abstain from all ordinary foods, and live on a specially prescribed diet, on account of intestinal disease. A. hard and conscientious worker, he lived a life of almost uninter- :: mittent pain, afraid to eat the simplest ~-, food,, and knowing that there was no --.■•A' prospect of' improvement in his >*> health for the rest of his life. , 'Z -} 'fShe appalling: tragedy of having t

everything that money can buy at his command ,and being unable to enjoy the simplest pleasures, was this man's fateC It was the old legend of Tantalus, "famishing with thirst though plunged in water to his neck, over again. His late years yere a veritable martyrdom, and death when it came to him must have appeared as a welcome friend. Edward W. Scripps. The "Millionaire Hermit of the Seas," Edward W. Scripps, built himself a steam yacht at a cost of nearly four million dollars, his object being to isolate himself from all sound. In lUs "workshop," a heaviy padded room on the yacht, he boasted that not a sound could penetrate. All sound was shut out from his ears by artificial means. After he had handed over his great newspaper business to his son, he travelled round the world seeking peace, unable to bear the ordinary noises of daily life. Twice his magnrficent yacht circumnavigated the entire glove, and in the end, when he died at sea off the coast of Africa, his body was, in accordance with his wishes, lowered to the great silence of the depths. Guiseppe Boggiani. "I have discovered during my long life that piles of money do not give happiness," wrote Guiseppe Boggiani an eccentric Italian millionaire, who made a large fortune in America, bobourne Mucical Society (Mr. Alberto The cause of the tragedy, was never discovered, but it was rumoured that Boggiani, who had never married, came to Como to live near the girl ho had loved all his life, who. had married another man. It was said that tho sight of her married happiness, and the contrast it made with his own tragic loneliness, drove him to self-destruction. The Brewster's Millions. In June last, Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Brewster, the millionaire couple, whose marriage was one of the great social events in New York, were found shot dead in Mrs. Brewster's bedroom at their Glonhead estate on Long Island. Mrs. Brewster was one of the most beautiful women in New York society, and it was generally thought that she and her husband lived tho most ideal lives together, up to the last fortnight • before the tragedy. Then servants alleged that they had heard violent quarrels between the pair, and there was talk, never fully substantiated, of some third party coming between them. It was said that, beautiful Mrs. Brewster's charms had attracted another lover, but this was never proved. The two went to their death carrying with them the secret of the tragedy that had wrecked their happiness, and made death preferable to life.