HOW THEY SPENT RICHES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24141, 6 December 1941, Page 16

HOW THEY SPENT RICHES

Some Millionaires Could Not Get Rid of M fEORGE EASTMAN made £50,000,000 out of \JL snapshots, but the greatest pleasure he got from it was in signing a cheque for a million or so for charity, writes John Vanderbilt, American correspondent of a London journal.

y—XLD pierpont Morgan was I j bitten toward the end of his life by the collecting craze. Though things were not going too well with him in business, ho continued to lavish fortunes on his art treasures until Britain s Queen, as she inspected his costly London home, was surprised into continual repetition of the words, "Wonderful! Wonderful!" Table Costs £70,000 Some £40,000 had been spent on hundreds of exquisite miniatures. A pair of busts had been bought for £20,000. He paid £30,000 . for the famous "Duchess of Devonshire' por- .. trait, and nearly as much for a rare church ornameht so small that it could be held in the palm of one's hand. I once went over the famous Morgan home on Madison Avenue, New York. The pictures housed there had cost a million. A single French table had cost £70,000. Four tapestries worth £BO,OOO adorned the walls behind it. There were rosecoloured Coventry vases, bought tor £IO.OOO. The library housed books with bindings of beaten gold, studded with gems, and rare volumes worth fortunes. I marvelled at the sight. There precious volumes lav, carefully shielded m glass cases. Many of their number, .1 learned. Pierpont "Morgan had never seen. His agents had purchased them in the salerooms. - Skilled librarians tended /them subsequently. Money can be spent without limit on an idea without the scheme reaching perfection. I shall never forget the

but was forced instead to become a miller's clerk at £1 a week. t As soon as he had made his money lie built himself a grand mansion. Within a few weeks lie felt dissatisfied with it. At his orders the building was torndown and a second house built in its stead. This pleased him no better, and was condemned to destruction. In various styles, house after house went up, and these mansions to-day are still dotted here and there all over America, in ruins as often as not. and eloquent of the tiselessness of wealth. For Yorkes. at the end, had no home of liis own. The houses he had built passed out of his control. He accepted the responsibility for a great financial fraud, though he was obviously guiltless of any criminal intent, and he emerged from his year's penal servitude morose and embittered. He lived in London, at the Savoy Hotel, always alone, never more lonely and pitiful than when he essayed forth to take tea at the house of his solitary friend, an art critic. What a pageant of oddities one meets among the millionaires of the world!

disastrous conclusion ot the theatrical dreams of Kverard Gates. "Money can buv anything," he said in effect. "Very well. 1 intend to stage the greatest theatrical show ever produced." Gates was a voting man of taste and discretion, But'his failure was lamentable. Owen Farrar was planning t*> stage a tiny revue in Chelsea. Around this nucleus, the fabulously expensive "White Birds" was built up. Practically every theatrical writer and composer in London was commissioned to turn out his best work. The material was paid for, but only the very best of it was used. _ Fantastic salaries were paid to stars of the first.water. Tho revue was postponed three times in order that the scenic designers might do bigger and better things. The cast was tremendous. The scenery, almost defies description. For one scene, the curtain rose upon a Parisian street, complete in every detail, including even pavements and cobbles and lamp-posts. Theatrical Fiasco Yet there was never a greater theatrical fiasco. The cast was too ununwieldv to control. The stars, finding their entrances late by an hour'or more, sat and cursed or sobbed in their dress-ing-rooms. "White Birds" lasted but a few days. When the curtain ran down for the last time a fortune had been swallowed up. Everard Gates wandered about the trgrounds of his Norfolk home monotonously repeating to himself: "Never again! Never again!" To Charles T. Yerkes, the. millionaire projector of London's electric railways, building was his life's ambition. As a youth he wanted to be an architect,