Heroes of Debt.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4892, 13 September 1884, Page 1

Heroes of Debt.

Pitt managed the national finances during a period of unexampled difficulty, yefc was himself always plunged in debt. Lord Carrington the ex-banker, once or twice, at Mr Pitt's request, examined his household accounts, and found the quantity of butcher's meat charged in the bills was one hundredweight a week. The charge for servants, wages, board "wages, living, and household bills.exceeded £2,300 a year. At Pitt's death the nation veted £40,000 to satisfy the demands of his creditors yet his income had never been less than £6,000 a year ; and at one time, with the Wardersbip of the Cinque Ports it was nearly £4000 a year more. Maeaulay truly says that " the character of Pitt would have stood higher, if with the disinterestedness of Pericles and De Witt, he had united there dignified frugaliy." But Pitt by no means stood alone. Lord Melville was as unthrifty in the management of his own affairs he was o£ the management of the money of the public. Pox was an enormous ower; his financial maxim being, that a man need never want money if he was willing to pay enough for it. Fox called the outer room at Almack's where be borrowed oa occassions from Jew lenders at exorbitant premiums, his " Jerusalem Chamber." Pasion for piay was his great vice, and st a very early age it involved him in debt to an enormous amount. It is stated by Gibbon that on one occasion Pox sat play« ing at hazards for tweaty hours, in succession, losing £11,000. But deep play was the vice of high life in those days, and cheating was not unknown. Selwyn, alludiug to Fox's losses at play called him Charles the Martyr. ' Sheridan was tl\o hero of debt. ]£& lived on it. _ T/howgh he received forge-

sums of money in one' nay or another, no one knew what became of it, for he paid nobody. It seemed to melt away in his hands like snow in summer. He spent his first wife's fortune of £1500 in a six weeks' jaunt to Bath. Necessity drove him to literature, and perhaps to the stimulus of poverty we owe " The Rivals " and the dramas which succeeded it. With his second wife he obtained a fortune of £8000, and with £15,000 which he realised by the sale of Drury-lane shares, he bought an estate in Surrey from which he ■was driven by debt and duns. The remainder of his life was a series of shifts, sometimes brilliant, but oftener degrading, to raise money and evade creditors. Taylor, of the Opera House, used to say that if he took off his hat to Sheridan in the street, it would cost him fifty pounds; but if he stoppad to f peak to him it would cost a hundred. One of Sheridans creditors came for his mongy on horseback. " That is a nice mare," said Sheridan. "Do you think so'?' "Yes indeed—How does she trot ?" The creditor, flattered, told him he should see, and immediately put it in full trotting pace, on which Sheridan took the opportunity of trotting round the nearest corner. His duns would come in numbers each morning to catch him before he went out. They were shown into the rooms on each side of the entrance hall. When Sheridan had breakfasted, he would come down, and ask, " Are those doors all shut, John ?" and on being assured that they were, he marched out deliberately between them. He was in debt all round to his milkman, his grocer, his baker, and his butcher. Sometimes Mrs Sheridan would be kept waiting for an hour or more while the servants were beating up the neighbourhood for coffee, butter, eggs, and rolls. While Sheridan was paymaster of the Navy, a butcher one day brought a leg of mutton to the kitchen the cook took it and clapped it in the pot to boil, and went upstairs for the money ; but not returning the butcher coolly removed the pot lid, took out the mutton, and walked away with it in his tray. Yet, while living in these straits, Sheridan, when invited with his son into the country, usually went in two chaises and four—he in one, and his son Tom in the other. The end was very sad. For some weeks before his death he was nearly destitue of the means of subsistence. His noble and royal friends had entirely deserted him. Executions for debt were in his house, and passed his last days in the custody of sheriffs' officers who abstained from conveying him to prison merely because they were assured that to remove him would cause his immediate death.— Samuel Smiles.