BURDENS OF WEALTH.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 1, 3 January 1910, Page 2

BURDENS OF WEALTH.

The reply of the average man to a rich man complaining of the burdens of his wealth would be: "I wish I had half your complaint." A writer in Munsey's sets out to demolish this belief that talk about the worries and burdens of the rich is only talk, and not to be taken seriously. He declares that the idea the average man has of the life led by millionaires is probably about as correct "as the conception which any of us would form of the daily life and habits of a Mullah in the heart of Afghanistan." Great fortunes,, it is true, bring various pleasures in their train, but when one has satisfied the demands of rational existence, an increase of wealth is not likely to bring an increase of happiness. Some men of enormous wealth ' have not cared a straw for comfort and pleasure. Russell Sage, who left 80,000.000 dollars, never took a holiday, used to wear old clothes, and lunched off an apple. The late B. P. Hutchinson, a Chicago millionaire, lived in one room on 75 cents a day. The greatest pleasure, and in many cases the only pleasure, that wealth brings, is a sense of power. To counterbalance the advantages of immense riches, are many disadvantages. There is the worry of looking after huge investments, and checking the operations of rivals. Business sometimes takes up as much time the millionaire has absolutely

no leisure to enjoy his wealth. In> America, at any rate, the man of great wealth has no privacy at all. unless he shuts himself up. "Whei£ ever he appears he is surrounded by si gaping crowd. The newspapers, chronicle his every movement. The> 'muckrakers' see something sinister mi everything he does. He is snap-shot-ted.1 His servants are interviewed. Every bit of kitchen gossip which concerns him and his family is Hurried into print with inevitable exaggeration." One American multi-million* aire has been obliged to station armed servants round his country house and arrange to flood his grounds with* electric light after sunset, and most millionaires in the States have to beaccompanied by an athletic bodyguard. Add the constant importunity of beggars of all descriptions and the question arises whether the life of the multi-millionaire is really wortK living. It can hardly be in such a case as is reported by the writer, IL * *? Ver3J successful man confessed that the only time he had to think shaved. WaS WheU he WaS h6in&