MISER AND SPENDTHRIFT.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1580, 11 March 1887, Page 3

MISER AND SPENDTHRIFT.

Tbere lived, a dozen years ago, on Dumaiae Street, down in the French portion of the city, an elderly negro, a uriffd in colour (writes a New Orleans correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer). His dwelling was a rickety old sbanty, dating from the ancient days of Orleans; its shingle roof rotten and covered with moss and weeds, and the house seemed about to tumble to pieces. It contained but two rooms, divided by a thin partition of planks, divisions merely for the eye, not for the nose or ear.

The front room seemed an old curiosity shop. It was stored with broken furniture, lumber, and odds aud ends of every description, but apparently worthless and valueless. The mostconspicuous piece of furniture i j this room was an immense rusty iron safe, which took up more than half of it. Here in a capacious and venerable rocking-chair sat day after day an old lady, shrivelled up into parchment, and of the august age of 108. She was the mother of the owner of the house, Francois Lacroix, the negro nurse. His life was one of absolute privation, for he allowed himself only the barest necessities. No one had ever known him to spend a cent beyond what was needed to keep him alive, for food and dress, and even his dress was of the shabbiest and meanest description. For ten months of the year Francois Lacroix lived this life of sordid want; but for the remaining two months he was absent from New Orleans on business.

Those who visited Paris any winter between iB6O and 1870, if they knew aught of Parisian life, inuat have heard of the millionaire Creole planter, Francois Lacroix. No buulecarJeur was more thoroughly Parisian than he, or carried more people of " the gay capital" with him. A|man of unbounded wealth, he rushed headforemost into all dissipations, and fairly electrified even Paris. His mistresses dressed more gorgeously than those of any Kussian Prince; his dinners were grander than those of Lucullus: his horees the finest in France. He threw away his money with a recklessuess that told of a Fortunatua purse, gambled it away, spent it on cocottes, aud lived at a rate that few in Pans could imitate. To have maintained this style would have required an annual income of 5,000,000f. Lacroix only lingered two months in Paris, and disappeared as mysteriously as he came. Not for good, however; for next year he returned to live over again the same life, eight weeks of profligacy worthy of Sardanapalus. As Paris always contains a large proportion of Louisiana Creoles, the disguise, if any was really attempted, could not long bo mantamed, and it became known that Francois Lacroix, the creole planter in Paris, and Francois Lacroix, the negro miser in New Orleans, were one and the same person. By industry and parsimony be had built up, perhaps, the largest fortune in M the Cressent city." Twenty five years ago his income was SI3U,UUO a year in rents alone, and he beld more than 11.000,000 of real estate, including some of the finest and most remunerative property in the city. Of his income,a few hundred went tor his home expenses during the ten months of his life in " the Crescent city " the remainder for his two months of Paris.

Year after year this went on, even duriug the war, and long after it. In the.heigbt of Republican rule L icroix came to the front in a titanic tax struggle with the Republican State Government on the question of taxes. Just about ten years ago, in 1874-5, his immense fortune, estimated at over a millioD, disappeared so suddenly that one might almort believe it was a case of Cinderella, when the golden coach became a pumpkin again. Lacroix's property was seized for taxes and sold. He was ottered the money by a hundred persons to redeem it, but refused it To every sheriff's sale he went, where the property sold at onehundredth its value, lie stood callous acd unregardful of what was on, smiling whenever a piece sold at an unusually low figure. One week he was a millionaire, the next ft pauper,

It seemed impossible to understand this course, and there were many who said that he was insane. There were others who claimed that it was a piece of revenge worthy of him. Of his two sons, one, who promised to be one of the coloured leaders of the state, died in the Mechanics' Institute riot in 1867 ; the other was disinherited; and it is said that one of the purposes of old Licroix in letting his fortune be swallowed up was to prevent that son from getting any portion of it, as he must have done under the laws of Louisiana. Whatever the cause of his action, however, the Licroix fortune was wholly dissipated, and the old man disappeared from view, eoon after to die in poverty.