THE GOLDEN STREAM.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 201, 30 April 1887, Page 8

THE GOLDEN STREAM.

Stories and Incidents in the Lives of Fortune Makers. Thomas Guy, whose name is -still held in veneration as the founder of Guy's Hospital, was the son of a coal-heaver and lighterman. Very early he seems to have contracted most frugal habits. According to Nichols, he dined every day at his counter, with no other table-cloth than an old newspaper ; and he was quite as economical in his dress. He once received an evening visit from " Vulture Hopkins," and the story is too characteristic to be omitted. Guy lighted a farthing candle for the reception of his guest, who explained that he had come to learn from him the art of frugality. "And is that all you came about?" replied Guy. " Why, then, we can talk the matter over in the dark. "

Mr Thellusson's Will. One money-inaking city man is to be specially remembered as a warning to rich capitalists as to how they make their wills. At the age of three-score-and-ten Mr Peter Thellusson, the banker, was the owner of £,6000,000 in hard cash, besides an annual rental of ±9,500. He left about £100,000 to his wife and three sons and daughter ; and the rest of his fortnne, amounting to more than £6,000,000, was conveyed to trustees, who were to let it accumulate until after the deaths, not only of his children, but of all the male issue of his sons and grandsons. After that event the vast property, with its accumulations at compound interest, was to be given to the nearest male descendant who should bear the family name of Thellusson, and then the great mountain of accumulated wealth was to be divided into three portions. It was a fine will for the lawyers. In two years after Peter Thellusson was gathered to his fathers two bills had been filled in Chancery impeaching the will— the one by his wife and children, the other by his trustees ; and the litigation lasted for 60 years, absorbing almost everything. The wife of the millionaire died, it is said, of a broken heart. Nor was this all. Parliament took the matter up ; and though they would not set aside the will, they enacted that power of devising property for the purpose of accumulation should be restricted to 12 years after the death of the testator.

Badgering A Millionaire. It is related by Baron Nathan de Rothschild that on one occasion he gave a lady the following pithy piece of advice. Seated at the dinner-table, she informed him that she had an only son, whom she was anxious to see placed well in business, and begged him to give her a hint on the subject. For a long time the baron hesitated, and at length, when urged by the lady, half goodnaturedly and half worried he turned round and said;— " Well, madam, I will tell you. Selling lucifer matches is a very good business if you have plonty of it."

Rothschild's Maxima The first English' Rothschild came to England with £2,000, which he soon turned into £60,000. "My success," he said to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, " all turned on one maxim. I said : I can do what another man can. Another advantage I had was am off-hand manner. 1 made a bargain at once. When I was settled in London, the East. India Company had £800,000 worth of gold to sell. I went to the sale and bought it all. I knew the Duke of Wellington must have it I had bought a good many of his bills at' a discount. The Government sent for me, and said they must have it. When they had got it, they did not know how to get it to Portugal. I undertook all that, and I sent through France ; and that was the best business I ever did. " Another rule of his was never to have anything to do with unlucky men. "I have seen," said he,, " many clever men— veay clever men— who > "had not shoes to their feet. I never act, with them. Their advice sounds very well;, but fate is against them ; they caomofc get on themselves, .and if they cannofc do good to themselves, how can they do good to> me ?"

Did Good by Stealth. In 1875 a sensational paragraph appeared in most ot the daily papers announcing the death of "an old Mr Atfcwood," Avho was doclaicd to have been a bachelor, and " the giver of all thcononymoiif £.'l,OOO cheques." It was further stated that he had given away < 350,000 in this way— £4s,ooo within the lnbt year ; that he had died intestate, leaving a foi tune of more than JC1, 000,000, and that a £ 1.000 note svas found lying in his room as if it had been waste paper.

The Ruling Passion. Daniel Dancer lived on the weald of Harrow, where he had a little estate of about 70 acres of x'ich meadow land, with some of the finest oak timber in the kingdom on it. Beside, there wa.s a good farm belonging to him worth at that time, if properly cultivated, more than £200 a year. One day, coming 1 to London to invest £2,000 in the funds, a gentleman who met him near the Exchange, mistaking him for a beggar, put a penny in his hand an affront which it is needless to say that the beggar pocketed. In spite of the fact that his wretched abode was often broken into, he made a great deal of money by his penurious habits. It took many weeks to explore thecontcntsofhi.sdwelling. As much as £2,500 were found in the dungheap in the cowhouse ; and in an old jacket, carefully tied and strongly nailed to the manger, was the sum of £500 in gold and bank notes ; £200 were found in the chimney, and an old teapot contained bank notes to the value of £500. Lady Tempest and Captain Holmes, his heirs, were benefited by the old miser's savings to the ex- ! tent of about £3,000 a year.

Discounting His Own Draft. We learn from the " Greville Memoirs " that Southey told this anecdote of Sir Massey Lopes. A man came to him and told him he was in great distress, and that £200 would save him. He gave him a draft for the money. " Now," said he, " what will you do with this ?"' "Go to the banker's and get it cashed." " Stop," said he, "I will cash it." So he gave him the money, but first calculated and deducted the discount — thus at once exercising his benevolence and his avarice.

A Street Sweepers Secret. Thackeray had a tale of a gentleman who married a young lady, drove a swell cab, and lived altogether in great style. The gentleman was. dumb as to his daily occupation. He would not impart the secret even to his wife. Even the prying mother-in-law was unable to solve the mystery. All that she knew was, what everyone else knew, that her son-in-law went out in his cab, with his tiger mounted behind, in the morning, and returned home in the same style at night. At length, one day, the young wife, going with her dear mamma intothe city shopping, recognised hei lord and master in the person of a street-sweeper, clothed in rags and covered with dirt. The di-covery was too much for him. He was never heard of more.— From " Money -Making Men," by J. Ewing Ritchie.