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THE BENEVOLENT BARON.
Hirscb as the Sew Moses of the Peo
ple ot Israel.
progress of the New Exodus—A Talk
With the Man Who, Having Planter
Seven Colonies in Argentina, Pro
poses to Plant Seven Times Seven.
From the London Graphic.
• How shall we talk,” asked Baron de
Hirsch. when visited by an interviewer a
{eve days ago, “in English, French or
German?”
• As you please, baron.”
■ All right,” laughed the baron, in a
voice resonant with good humor. “Since
we are in England we will converse in
English. It is ail the same to me. And
he shrugged his shoulders with the mil
lionaire s indifference to triPes.
IS JflS I.OSDON HOME.
I took from my pocxet a siiuaf of photo
graphs representing scenes in the Jewish
colonies. which Baron de Rirsch's munifi
cence has established in the Argentine.
They had been sent to the Daily Graphic
office by a correspondent, and they con
stituted my excuse for disturbing the flew
Moses with a morning call. As he
glanced through them I seized the oppor
tunity of looking more narrowly at the
remarkable man and bis surroundings.
We were seated in a handsome room at
Bath House. Piccadilly, the baron's Lon
don home. Through the corners of the
half-veiled windows, looking out on a
parterre of flowers with the Green Park
beyond, the sunbeams entered iubrilliant
filiments and danced about the gilt frame
of a gorgeous but otherwise comfortable
armchair in which the baron sat.
portly, robust and good-looking,
he seems to carry his sixty-odd
years well. The weight of his
millions sits lightly on his' broad shoul
ders, and the eyes, which look at you
from midway between the huge iron-gray
mustache and the carefully brushed-up
circle of silver-gray hair, have the twin
kle and cheermess of a temper for which
the world has lost none of its savor. He
is soberly dressed in a slate-colored morn
ing costume, with a small diamond Din
thrust negligently into his dark blue cra
vat. The table before him is littered with
papers, books and curious mechanical
contrivances, and when I entered he was
deep in his morning’s work with his pri
vate secretaries.
The photographs interested him. “I
have some photographs, too,” he said, as
be turned them over, "better than these,
but perhaps not quite so unstudied. Dear
me 1 How interesting it is to see these
old Jewish faces under the Argentine
sun. Look at this sad-faced man carrying
a bundle of sticks, still clad in his Polish
coat; and these little Hebrew cowboys,
who have passed from Ghetto to the open
country of the new world.”
DF.AKLT-BOrGHT EXPERIENCES.
"How are your colonies getting on?” I
inquired.
-Very well,” replied the baron, put
ting aside the photographs, "lam quite
satisfied. Of course I have had diffi
culties ; hut now, I hope, I believe, I am in
the right way. My hands, you know,
were forced by the suddenness of the per
secutions. I was deluged with Jews of
all kinds, and I had to winnow the chaff
from the corn. And there was a good
deal of chaff. I assure you. I could tell
you many amusing stories of the impos
tors who foisted themselves on me, some
of them neither Jews, nor even Russians.
But I stuck to the work; made all sort of
experiments; turned to the right and to
the left: and now, if I have not yet hit
upon an ideal scheme, at any rate I know
not what to do.”
And the baron laughed gayly over his
dearly bought experience.
"But the colonies are on their legs now,
are they not?”
"Yes; and they are getting on very
nicely. As yet I have rather more than
3,000 persons established in seven colonies
in the provinces of Buenos Ayres, Entre
Rios, Santa Fe and Cordova. They are
all doing well, and, although the oldest of
the settlements was only founded three
years ago, they are raising very large
crops. Nearly IS,OOO acres are under
wheat alone. Millions of fruit trees have
been planted, and every kind of vegeta
ble. It is not precisely a land in which
milk and honey flourish, but it gives a
magnificent return for honest labor.
The remarkable thing is the good
will and adaptability with which the
coionists have taken to the soil. The pre
dictions of our enemies that the Jews
would never go back to agriculture have
been falsified. The Russian Jew has
grit, industry, sobriety and is eager for
work. No matter wbat he has been at
home, be takes readily to the spade. I
know of one family—the father was a
professor, the daughters are educated
girls accomplished musicians and lin
guists, speaking French, German and
Italian. They are all following the plow
to-day. Yes, they gave me the greatest
hope.”
ORGANIZATION IN RUSSIA.
"What about the organization of the
exodus from Russia?”
That has been very much improved of
late. Formerly the refugees were sent
to my managers at Buenos Ayres in mis
cellaneous crowds, and the result was
that they were a long time being got into
order, while not a few had to be returned
as hopeless. Now, while the manage
ment in the Argentine is laying out and
equipping colones and villages a special
committee in Russia is organizing and
training the emigrants. The Russian
committee selects and collects fifty fami
lies at a time, grouping and training
them in such a way that they shall sup
ply all the elements of a self-governing
agricultural settlement, including a rabbi
and a doctor. When they are ready
they are shipped to the Argentine,
and on landing go straight to their
colony. There is no hitch. Each
family goes direct to its house, which
it finds ready in every detail, with six or
eight oxen in the stables, two plows and
two harrows in the seeds, and about 190
acres of land cleared ready for tillage. So
perfect are the arrangements that the
very next morning the colonists set to
work. Subsidies are granted them for the
purchase of food until the first crop is
harvested, after which they support
themselves. Only yesterday 650 emi
grants who were organized on this plan
arrived in Argentina. I have ar
ranged for this year the establishment of
nine new villages of fifty families each,
and 1 calculate on eight or ten souls to a
family.
DIFFICULTIES.
' Local difficulties still exist. One
rather serious one is the scarcity of oxen
and milch cows. The Argentine abounds
m oxen, but they have to bo tamed. It
_ aroe necessary for my director to
start a large farm and a special organi
sation for the purpose aloue. Without
su; h an arrangement we should never
have been able to obtain sufficient yoke
nt oxen for plowing, and even if we had
■ would not have been advisable to pur
' base the native-trained oxen. So cruel
are the native methods of training that
the animals always remain more or less
tcious and untrustworthy. Wo are in
troducing a humane system Into the
ountry which will bear fruit beyond
the limits of tho Jewish colonies. An
other difficulty is the water question in
, htre Rios, where we have to dig twen
l. .! e yards for wells. And then there
m difficulty of transport for the
more remote i olonies, Put that, of course,
e shall solve with a railway as soon as
requisite stage of development is
ached. My chief difficulty, however,
as a 1 along l>eeu to find willing and con
‘ ;u ’*‘ associates. The poor Jews will do
any thing for me.but they cau offer me no
guarantees; the middle classes—people
with their twenty or thirty thousand
roubles—are contented and apathetic;
the rich— well, when a Jew becomes rich
oe is no longer a Jew. Of course, there
are exceptions." hurriedly added the
aaron. as the bitterness of the remark
-eemed to dawn on him, "and in this
ountry the description would certainly
not apply. Y'ou are happy here in ha v
ng the most public-spirited Jewish com
nunitv in the world. If 1 were fixed per
manently in London I would find to-mor
row fifty rich men, aye, and women, too,
who would .oin me and work for me with
greatest self-denial and enthusiasm.
THE FUTURE.
"You must remember." continued the
Baron after a pause, "that with all the
success I have had lam only at the be
ginning of my enterprise. The land
that I have will not accommodate more
than from ten to fifteen thousand people
And what is that ? A trifle. I must have
a much larger tract of land. A special
commission will shortly be dispatched by
me to study a scheme of colonization on a
large scale, and to purchase three or four
million acres at least. Meanwhile I
shall continue to send out four or five
thousand people a year, and in twoiyears’
time I hope to be able to invite the lead
ing representatives of the European and
American press to visit my< colonies ana
see for themselves whether the Jews are
not r for something better than mere
trade.”
■ns there any hope for brighter days
for the Jews in Russia!”
"None whatever—at least not for a
very long time. The persecution of dis
senters is inherent in the present state of
things in Russia. But when my scheme
is a success it will bring shame to the
cheek of every Russian. The time will
come when I shall have three of four
hundred thousand Jews flour
ishing in their homesteads in the
Argentine, peaceful and respected citi
zens, a valuable source of national
wealth and stability. Then we shall be
able to point to them and contrast them
with their brethern who have been demo
ralized by prosecution. What shall the
Jew-haters have to say then? I have
made up my mind not to stop in this
work. If my energies or my fortune
could accomplish it, believe me the whole
Jewish population of Russia would be
taken out of the country to-morrow.”
THE APPENDICITIS FAD.
Popular Errors About Grape Seeds
Exploded by a Prominent Surgeon.
From the New York World.
A prominent doctor who has performed
a score of successful operations for the
removal of that troublesome and inex
plainable part of the human anatomy, the
vermiform appendix, says that the gen
eral impression that appendicitis is caused
by the presence in the appendix of a
cherry stone or a currant seed or a seed
of any kind is entirely erroneous. “I have
not found a seed in the appendix of
a single one of my cases.’’ he said. “A
small bit of digested matter gets into the
little sac, if the neck of it is open
far enough to receive it. It may remain
there for ' years and cause no
trouble, and then again it may bring on
appendicitis almost immediately. Where
the patient is in good health,in four cases
out of live the operation for removing the
appendix is successful. There is a great
difference in the length of time taken by
surgeons to perform this or, in fact, any
delicate operation. There is a surgeon in
the city who has performed the operation
in eighteen minutes, which included the
time from the moment the patient was
brought in on the operating table until he
was ready to be taken out. This is half
the time that it requires the majority of
skillful surgeons to do it. Of course,
speed is not everything.
“The appendicitis fad. as the craze
among rich people to have their vermi
form appendices removed is called, still
continues unabated, and there are few
surgeons of prominence now who are not
familiar with the performance of the
operation. A story is told of a doctor
who is constantly ordering the removal of
the vermiform appendix for patients. He
was called to see a gentleman one evening
who had been rather seriously injured.
The gentleman, when he recognized the
doctor, said:
“Oh. it is you; then I must have appen
dicitis!”
•‘Doctors who have allowed the appen
dicitis fad to carry them away have per
formed the operation upon a great many
people wnose vermiform appendices were
in good condition, and in some cases pa
tients having wepk constitutions have
died because of the needless slit in their
abdomens. I am very glad to explode
that story about the grape seeds and
other seeds, especially as the grape
season is just' coming on: People who
have heard about appendicitis have given
up the luxury of small fruit in fear of ap
pendicitis. and some of the extremely
sensitive ones have even been constantly
worried lest some seed that they had
swallowed in the past might give them
this disease—which is among the rarest
of diseases, anyway.”
MILK AND CHOWCHOW.
A Queer Meal Set Before Indian Chief
Rocky Bsar and Braves.
From the New York Press.
Rocky Bear, who is one of the Indian
chief attached to Buffalo Bill's Wild West
show at Ambrose Park, was a prominent
figure in what was. perhaps, the most
unique ceremonial dinner ever given in
this country. In 1877 a party of English
men were being conducted through the
Indian country, sight-seeing and hunting.
When they ran across Rocky Hear and a
party of his braves the Englishmen were
greatly taken with the noble red man and
insisted upon extending to him every
courtesy. They invited Rocky Bear and
his followers to take lunch with them.
The guide who was in charge of the party
knew full well that if the Dig chief and
his party made an onslaught upon the
provisions of the expedition there would
not be enough left to see the party
through three days. Among the stock of
provisions that the luxurious Englishmen
had insisted upon carrying along with
them were several cases of condensed
milk and a lot of bottled ehowchow.
The plainsmen had a supreme contempt
for this stuff, and when the Englishmen
asked their Indian visitors into the tent
to partake of refreshments they were
very angry to see nothing but cans of con
densed milk and bottles of ehowchow set
around on the ground. Each brave was
handed an open can of condensed milk and
a bottle of ehowchow. The milk was
tasted carefully at first, and then drunk
down. The ehowchow did not meet with
much favor. Some of the braves drank
half a dozen cans of milk. After all the
milk had disappeared, and only a few
bottles of the pickles remained, the In
oians were evidently waiting for some
thing. Their English host was greatly
annoyed over the feast that had
been set out in his name, After waiting
a while one of the Indians, who could
speak fairlv good English, went up to
the Englishman with an empty milk can
In one hand and a ehowchow bottle in
the other. “Ugh. no—good.” Then he
threw them aside and marched off, fol
lowed by the entire party.
Laughing about this old time incident
the other day. Rocky Bear said it was
old Spotted Tail who made the "kick.”
but added, "we have earned much wis
dom from Col. Cody, and now none of us
wanted whisky. Coffee and bread and
meat are our friends. Tho evil spirit is
in whisky.”
The American College in Rome, with the
Rector Mgr. O'Connell, has moved to Grotta
farreta. two hours from Rome. where the mas
ter* and students will spend the summer.
THE MORNING NEWS: SUNDAY, AUGUST 5, 1894.
ACCIDENT _lN_ HISTORY.
Apparently Trilling Matters That
Were ot Moment.
The Nod of a Peasant at Waterloo.
Attila and the Lost Miniature—Two
Casual Walks, and What Came of
Them -Files and the Declaration of
Independence.
From the Globe-Democrat
In his wonderful sketch of the battle of
Waterloo, drawn with touches as bold
and masterful as the crayon strokes in
one of Michael Angelo's cartoons. Victor
Hugo describes the fate of the world as
hanging on the nod of a peasaut. When
Napoleon was examining the ground on
which the English forces were awaiting
his attack, he searched every spot care
fully with his glass, but failed to discover
the sunken road of Chain, which did Dot
make so much as a ripple on the hillside,
so completely was it hidden from view.
Turning to the guide, a peasant of the
neigborbood. he asked if there was any
obstacle to the advance of cavalry. The
guide shook his head The cavalry were
ordered to charge They did so. and
Hugo says that 2,060 horses and 1,500 men
were buried in the sunken road. This he
declares to be the beginning of the
long list of disasters which determined
the fate of Napoleon at Waterloo.
Had the guide nodded instead of
shaking bis head, the cavalry might have
been ordered forward by another route,
and the fortune of the French emperor
and the history of the world might have
been changed. As though, however, to
counterbalance this, the same writer says
that had the little cowboy who acted as
guide to Blucher advised him todebouche
from the forest above Frischemont. rather
than below Planchenoit, the shaping of
the nineteenth century might have been
different. Both incidents are probably
apocryphal, for only one authority, and
he by hearsay, speaks of the Blucher
cowboy, and the existence of the sunken
road toOhain is disputed by several, who
boldly assert that there was no such road
at the point indicated; but either incident
is significant, as showing by what trifles
the course of history is deflected.
According to the testimony of at least
two reliable historians of his own time.
Attiia's invasion of the western empire,
an event that brought incalculable mis
ery on half of Europe for soveral years,
was brought about by the sheerest acci
dent. From A. D. 445 to 449 Attila was
engaged in continual hostilities with the
eastern empire, but in the latter year,
both sides being tired of the war, an at
tempt was made to patch up a treaty. An
embassy from the court of Theodosius
was sent to the camp of Attila. and in the
party was a young man from Rome, who
was then on a visit to Constantinople.
He was of noble birth and had a sweet
heart in the person of Honoria, a relative
of the Roman imperial family. As lovers
have been known to do, he carried on his
person the miniature of his sweet
heart, and while the party was in the
presence of the savage chief be chanced
to drop the picture out of his pocket.
It fell unnoticed in the straw which
covered the ground in AttUa’s tent,
where, on the following day, it was found
by an attendant and shown to the Hun
nish monarch himself. Struck by the
beauty of the fate, the amorous King in
quired in what part of the world such
women were to be found, and when told
from the inscription on the back of the
nicture that the counterfeit presentment
was that of an Italian beauty he at once
made up his mind to go thither. So he
started in 450 with his hordes of Asiatics,
ravaged the heart of Europe with Are and
sword, marched through a part of Ger
many into France, and, at Chalons, en
countered one of the most tremendous de
feats recorded in history. It is presumed
that he forgot all about the Roman Hon
oria after this event, for he retired into
Hungary, where he found another beauty,
and while celebrating his marriage with
her he died, either of bursting a blood ves
sel. as was given out, or of poison.
There is no testimony of the Book of
Samuel to prove that the history of
Israel was materially changed by a chance
walk taken by King David on the roof of
his palace. It wasdurmg this promenade
that he saw the beautiful Bathsheba, the
wife of Uriah, the Hittlte officer, who.
though probably only a mercenary in the
royal army, was still a faithful soldier;
too faithful, in fact, for nis own good:
for David, after vainly trying several
schemes, finally utilized the bravery of
the deluded soldier to secure his re
moval. No more cowardly device could
have been conceived to get rid of the de
ceived husband, and the crime of his
blood was amply repaid by the long se
ries of harem intrigues, revolts, mnrders,
and rebellions through which the # son of
Bathsheba was finally established on the
throne as David’s successor. An equally
causal promenade had consequences quite
as momentous for Italy during the second
Punic war. It was after the great Han
nibal had crossed the Alps and entered
Italy. The Romans had been defeated
at the Ticinus and Trebia, at Lake Thra
symenus, and, worst of all, at Cannae,
and Hannibal had taken up winter quar
ters at Capua. Here he took possession
of one of the best houses in the city for
his own use. and. while walking in the
garden, heard a female voice singing not
far away. He could understand nothing
of what was sung, but was struck by the
plaintive melody. In the rough-and-ready
ways of those good old days he com
manded the singer to be brought into his
presence, and when this was done was so
greatly impressed by her appearance that
he at once took her into his own house
hold, ridding himself of her husband by
the simple but effective method of cutting
off his head. During the remainder of
the winter the time of the great Cartha
ginian was given up to pleasure; business
and discipline were alike neglected, and
before spring the Carthaginian army was
so demoralized by dissipation and vice
that it was never afterward good for any
thing, and Hannibal's cause was lost.
Jenerson was fond of telling a story
which illustrates in a forcible manner the
importance that absurdly insignificant
matters may sometimes assume. When
the deliberative body that gave the world
the Declaration of Independence was in
session, its proceedings were conducted
in a hall close to which was situated a
livery stable. The weather was warm,
and Irom the stable came swarms of flies
that lighted on the legs of the honorable
members, and, biting through the thin
silk stockings then in fashion, gave infi
nite annoyance. It was no uncommon
sight, said Jefferson, to see a member
making a speech with a largo handker
chief in hand and pausing at every mo
ment to thrash the flies from his thinly
protected calves. The opinion of the body
was not unanimous in favor of the docu
ment, and. under other circumstances,
discussion might have been protracted for
days, if not weeks, out the flies were in
tolerable. Efforts were made to find an
other hall, free from the pests, but in
vain. As the weather became warmer
the flies grew worse, and the flapping of
handkerchiefs was heard all over the hall
as an accompaniment to the voices of the
speakers. In despair, at last someone
suggested that matters be hurried so that
the body might adjourn and get away
from the flies. There wore a few mild
protests, but no one heeded them, the
Immortal declaration was hurriedly
copied, and, with handkerchiefs in hand
fighting flies as they came, the members
hastened up to the table to sign the au
thentic copy and leave the flies in the
lurch. Had it not been for the livery
stable and its Inmates, there is no telling
when the document would have been com
pleted, but it certainly would not have
been signod on tho Fourth.
Two historians of the time of Henry
VIII. of England are responsible for the
statement that a lost horseshoe changed
the religious and possibly also the politi-
cal history of the insular power. After
the fall of Anne Eoleyn. and when her
death had been determined, the papacy
prepared terms of reconciliation so favor
able in every particular to Henry, and so
flattering to the vanity of which he pos
sessed rather more than a due share
that it was impossible for him not to ac
cept them. A delegate was dispatched
from Rome with proposals and
rode post haste across Europe witn
them. When only a day’s journey
from Calais, however, his horse cast a
shoe and fell lame. As the horse was a
favorite animal, the papal messenger de
termined to wait for a day, rather than
take another steed, which might not be
so easy under the saddle. The next day
the horse was well and the journey was
resumed, Calais was reached, the chan
nel was crossed, and the delcgate,arrived
in London only to find that on the day of
his arrival Henry had been married to
Jane Seymour, a Protestant: that Anne
had been beheaded the day before, and
that ail hope of a reconciliation was lost
He was a day too late. A lost horseshoe
had changed the course of a nation's his
tory. A similar mishap is said to have
been responsible for the arrest and de
tention of Louis XVI at Varennes. A
guard of cavalry had been sent to meet
qim at the village and escort him in safety
across the frontier. One of the horses
drawing the royal carriage became lame
from the loss of a shoe, and the royal
party was detained. Meantime the cav
alry escort, fearful qfattractiug too much
attention in the Village, withdrew to a
bridge a few hundred yards distant and
on the opposite side from which the king
was expected, and there waited his arri
val. The delay and change were fatal.
The king was recognised, the party was
detained; the cavalry, becoming tired of
waiting, and supposing that the king had
taken some other route, rode off, and
Louis went back to Paris and the scaffold
History records one. war that was
caused by a glass of water which the
English Am bassador procured for a cele
brated Freneh beauty at the Paris court;
and of a treaty, that of Utrecht, which
was brought on by a quarrel between
Queen Anne and the Duchess of Marl
borough about a pair of gloves Odder
than either, however, was the cause of
the great hundred years' war between
England and France, which impoverished
both. It was in this wise: Louis VII. was
no saint, but, so far as the ladias were
concerned, had a weakness that was con
stantly securing for him penances of one
kind or another at the hands of his con
fessor Finally he was guilty of some
peccadilloes so very bad that the rev
erened father ordered him to have his
luxuriant beard shaved and his flow
ing locks cropped short. This was
done, and the change made in the per
sonal appearance of the Majesty of France
was so startling that when his queen, the
already not too faithful Eleanor, came
into his presence, she laughed aloud at
the spectacle. The poor king could not
explain matters for the explanation would
have made a worse appearance than his
close-cropped poll, so he was forced in
silence to endure her jibes. If she had
stopped at ridicule, the matter might
have ended there and been forgotten
when his beard and hair were grown, but
he was rendered so contemptible in her
sight that she openly kept company with
the Count of Anjou, then a nobleman of
the court. The shaven king stoo I the
disgrace as long as he could, but matters
went from bad to worse, and finally he
sent to the pope the evidence in the case,
and succeeded in having the marriage
declared invalid. Eleanor then, finding
herself free, married her lover, who
afterward became Henry 11. of England.
When she came to the throne of Louis,
however, she had brought as her dower
the rich provinces of Poitou and Guiene,
anu after her divorce from Louis, sought
to reclaim them. To this, however, Louis
would by no means consent; he was glad
enough to get rid of the queen, but he
was eager to keep her dower. Henry
pressed his wife’s claims to the provinces,
and then came on a series of wars which
not only lasted for a century, but left an
animosity not vet extinct.
Everybody lias heard of the chance
which led Columbus to change his course
in midocean, and thus leave North Amer
ica for the English to settle, but every
body has not heard of the game of chess
which led the Spanish monarch to take
an interest in the explorer and espouse
his cause. It is a Spanish tradition that
the fate of Columbus once hung on a game
of chess. For years the schemer had
haunted the Soanish court, trying to in
terest someone in his cause, but at last
despairing he determined to leave and go
to France. The night before his intended
deoarture he sought an audience of tho
queen to communicate his intention and
to take his leave. The queen asked him
to wait, while she made one more effort to
interest the king, and left the room for
that purpose. She found Fprdinand en
gaged at a game of chgss, and disturbing
him by her entrance and thus causing
him to lose a piece, lie let fly a volley of
oaths at seamen generally and at Colum
bus in particular, and then informed Isa
bella that the result of her petition would
depend on the result of the game. It
grew worse, and things looked blue for
the discoverer of America, but Isabella,
overlooking the hoard, whispered to his
majesty a suggestion as to a move that
could be made: the king adopted the sug
gestion and America was saved. It is a
queer story, but no stranger than the
one told in Rome at the time the
divorce of Henry VIII. was under
discussion that the negotiations
were broken of by the Earl
of Wiltshire's dog. "This unman
nearly cur had followed his master into
the court, and when the pontiff, at the
close of the audience, put out his foot to
be kissed by the ear), the dog bit it, and so
angered the pope and horrified the court
that the negotiations were suspended.
The story may be true or false, but in
either case is an excellent demonstaation
of the value of a trifle, when the trifle oc
curs in the life of an exalted personage,
and gives point to the remark made by
Paschal along the same line, that if the
nose of Cleopatra had been an inch longer
or shorter the course of the world's his
tory might have been materially changed.
. QUEER C. P. HUNTINGTON.
When He Moves Into Bis New Palace
He Fears Death May Move In Too.
From the New York World.
When Collis P Huntington gave out a
short time ago that the big granite palace
he bad built for bimself atFifty-seventh
street and Fifth avenue was for sale, he
did not accompany the statement with
any reason. Now, everybody knew that
there must be some very good reason to
make him give up this palace, which had
cost him nearly #2,000,000, not to speak of
the thought and time be had put into its
elaborate plans. Mr. Huntington is, as
everybody knows, a speculator, acute,
far-sighted, above all daring. He began
life as a farm boy in Connecticut, and he
rose to be worth #100,000,000 at one time
by daring pure and simple. No mun ever
pinned his faith more absolutely to that
old rule that there are three requisites to
success- audacity, audacity, audacity.
Tne first supiosltlon was that'Mr.
Huntington had again staked his fortune
on a single throw and had lost such a part
of it that his big house, with its accom
panying establishment, was for tho time
too much for him. There were rumors of
several large unsuccessful enterprises in
which he was said to be the moving spirit.
But when Mr. Huntington was seen he
laughed and said he was all right and
that his financial condition had nothing
to do with the sale of his palace. But bis
denial did not go for much, becauseaman
does not usually own up when he is in a
tight place for money.
Several months passed, and no pur
chaser was found for the house. The ru
mors of financial embarrassment passed,
and the house v.as still for sale. Some
Does Yom t Boy
Need ■ ■ •
BrStainnka?
£t tiAnmcn
Youth •'
Is the period. It is then that the
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This is a time when a parent's responsibility
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readily he develops a taste for the best
In literature. Let that taste be developed,
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It was
Dr, Philips Brooks
Who said. “ Show me what books a boy |
reads, and I will read you his destiny. ’
How important it is. then, that your home
should be provided witb-books of the highest
character.
Fairytales, and even, perhaps. "Buffalo
Bill" stories, have their place as developers
of a taste for reading, a sort of literary milk,
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knowledge, history, travel, etc., you may be
sure that he is mentally unsound, or that
there has been something radically wrong in
his education.
The Encyclopedia Britannica has rightly
been termed "the concentrated essence of
the whole world’s •wisdom.” Let your boy
read its interesting pages, and he will soon
look with disdain upon " flashy ” literature.
We are continually underestimating a boy’s
capacity for large ideas. There is nothing
so attractive as truth. Give him the material
out of which to construct large ideas. Put
Britannica in the home, where he can consult
it continually, and as he attains manhood he
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Seize the present opportunity to provide a
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while It may be had at introductory price*.
(Jail and see samples at the local office,
101 Broughton street, Savannah, Ga.
m w explanation was necessary. When
the plans for the house were made the
Huntinztons were just buying the Ger
man Prince Hatzfeldt for their daughter,
and it was said that the new house was
for the purpose ol making a grand entry
into New V ork society, which had hith
erto refused the Iluntipgtons, despite
their millious. So the new explanation
revived this story, and supplemented it
with the statement that the Huntingtons
had failed to get recognition, and, seeing
that the new nouse would only bring hu
miliatin, they had decided to give up
their attempts upon society, as ruled by
the Astors and planned by McAllister.
This was very satisfactory, and even
society people told it about and laughed
over the way the Huntingtons had been
rebuked. The new house, with its mas
sive granite, walls, so much like a penal
institution and so thorougnly concealing
lrom the public the splendors of the in
terior, seemed a monument to a social
lailure, and nobody wondered that Hunt
ington was anxious to get it off his hands.
But this social-failure explanation was
as far from the truth as was the story of
financial embarrassment. The real reason
why Huntington never moved into his
house is so small that to most people it
will seem ridiculous. It is likely that
Huntington himself would publicly deny
it, just as we all deny those little weak
nesses which are nevertheless so power
ful in all our lives. The great millionaire,
the strong man. the fearless speculator,
refused to move into his new house be
cause he feared that, if he moved in, he
would die. It was the old superstition
that old men who grow rich build lice
houses for their own funerals. And al
most any architect will tell you that he
has again and again lost valuable con
tracts through this very superstition.
When Mr. Huntington started his plans,
back in 1881, he no doubt thought of this
superstition, but let it have little Weight
with him He planned slowly and elabo
rately, and, when the contractors at last
got to work, they built slowly, and were
again and again delayed. He expected to
move in three years ago, but it was only
last year that the house began to get near
completion. In the mean time his health
had become less vigorous His age and his
years of hard work and worry began to
tell upon him.
The superstition came back with re
newed force, and he began to think a great
deal about it. At last he became abso
lutely convinced that, should he move in,
the first function to which his friends
would be invited would be his funeral.
Then he decided that he would not even
keep the house in the family; tha'he
would sell It and remove auy possible
danger of his having to occupy ft. And
he will stick to his idea. He will never
live in the house, he will never fnr
nish it. and if he lives twenty years and
the house remains unsold he will still be
of the same mind
It is always interesting but no longer
strange to find these small superstitions
coming out in men who are supposed to
be absolutely matter-of-fact. It is said
that Mr. Huntington has another super
stition—that he will not ride in the eleva
tor with a colored person, because he
thinks it would mean bad luck in some
way; either that the elevator would fall
or some of his many involved enterprises
would go wrong.
There is no man In New York of whom
one would think superstition less proba
ble. He is a particularly calculating,
practical iierson, as his whole career
shows, and as one could find out from
half an hour's talk with him. But this
superstition of his. which has led him to
sacrifice a plan which was dear to his
wife and daughter, and which must have
been of the highest importance to him,
is one that is very often found
among rich people. It is said that the
origin of it was in the fact that many
men, in their haste to move into grand
new houses, have not waited for the
paint and plastering to dry, and have
thus caught their death. Whatever the
reason, it is undoubtedly true that many
a rich man has died immediately after
building the house tnat was to be the
monument of his good fortune. And Mr.
Huntington prefers not to be another ex
ample, and will content himself with the
huge palace In California street, San
Francisco, and the country place at
Tlirogg's Neck, Westchester couuty.
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MORNING NEWS, Savannah, Ga.
13