THE RICHEST WOMAN IN SOUTH AMERICA.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1524, 26 March 1886, Page 4

THE RICHEST WOMAN IN SOUTH AMERICA.

The Ci<is»us of South Americs is a woman, Dona Isadora Cuusino, of Santiago, Chile, and there are few men or women in the world richer than she. There is 1.0 rnd to her money, and no limit to her extravagance, and people call her the Countess Monte Chejato. She traces ber ancestry back to the days of the Conquest, and has the re* cord of the first of her fathers, who landed on the shores of the >'ew World. Her late husband was the ricbtst man in Chile, and, baring added his vist possessions to her own, she has »n income of sereral millions a year. From her coal mines alone Senora Coutino has sn income of $90,000 a month. She bas a monopoly of the coal, and, though it coats her but 91 35 • lon to pat it in the market, she will not sell for kss than $7 50. She has a fleet of eight iron steamships, of capacities varying from 2,00" to 3,600 tons. fflme. Cousino owns every house in the town of Lota, and every one of ha 8,000 or 7,000 inhabitants is dependent upon her for support. In Coronel ber proprietorship is not quite 19 complete, but nbcteathi of the

people—and there are 8,000 of them ire on her pay rolls. She has brick kilns and potteries aa well a* shelters, and makes all the tiles and earthenware need on the West Coast. It is said that she pays oat from SIOO,OOO to $120,000 a month aa wages in these two towns. Her mansion stands in ihe centre of what is, undoubtedly, the finest private park in the world, including 250 acres of land laid out in the most elaborate manner. The madam is very fond of young men, and has from fifteen to twenty young fellows around ber constantly, to whom she gives all the money they can spend, and in return she expects them to entertain her Both of her daughters are very bright and pretty, one being about seventeen and the other nineteen years of age. Their brother, a young man of twentythree or twenty-four, will share the property with them.— W. E. Curtis, in the Chicago Inter-Ocean.