NOTORIOUS MISERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 September 1930, Page 12

NOTORIOUS MISERS

-• STINGY MILLIONAIRES. Lt One of the greatest misers of all time was John Elwes, who was a 1 member of the House of Commons h for Berkshire on three different occasions. Miserliness was in the e family. His mother possessed, as a widow, the Sum of £lOO,OOO, and it y was commonly said that she kept it only by starving herself to death. e Sir Henry Elwes, uncle of John 1 ‘ Elwes, lived on £lOO a year, and died wo>th £250,000. John Elwes himself built a number of fine London streets, but lived most of his life in one drab ' room containing only two - chairs and e a table. As he grew older he became B more and more thrifty, and his ini’ heritance from his mother had increas- • ed enormously as a result of his B shrewd methdds. Latterly he covered the windows of his country house £ with paper to save having them reglazed, and he rode his horses on the 3 grass by the side of the road rather 3 than wear out their shoes. At his £ death it was disclosed that his estate 3 was worth £850,000. Another man whose miserly habits 3 were the talk of the day was the late 1 Marquess of Clanricarde, who died ’ leaving £3,400,000. He did much of, 1 his own clothes mending, and he was 1 often seen with inch long 3 in his coat. One of his idiosyncrasies consisted of carrying hard-boiled eggs in his pockets to obviate the necessity 1 for buying a meal while on a journey. But if ever a history of the greatest misers is written a name that will figure prominently in it is that of M. 1 Vandille, a one-time chief magistrate 1 of Boulogne. His fortune, says a ! writer in the Cape Argus, in his 78th * year was £900,000, and it is recorded ’ that by this time he had converted

everything he possessed, save his scanty wardrobe, into cash. His customary diet was bread and milk, the milk being obtained in the form of samples for analysis seized by him from milkmen in his capacity of magistrate. So much store did the miser set by this trick that when he was offered a more important post in Paris he hesitated, fearing to lose his free drinks of milk. After accepting the post he walked to the capital, begging his food by the way. On being seized by what proved to be his last illness, M. Vandille sent for an apothecary to bleed him. The apothecary asked in Advance for a fee which the miser denounced as exorbitant, whereupon the man left. Finally a poor barber was sent for, his terms being three sous every time he opened a vein, with a reduction if the necessary quantity of blood was let in one operation. M. Vandille, miserly to the last, agreed -to this alternative, and died as a result of it.