THE CRADLES OF SOME COLOSSAL FORTUNES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2360, 18 May 1899, Page 55

THE CRADLES OF SOME COLOSSAL FORTUNES.

' There are few things more interesting than to trace back the "rivers of great fortunes " to their small beginnings, and to see by what magic one sovereign has grown into a million within two or three generations. The cradle of the £12,000,000 with which the late Jay Gould made millionaires of his six children was a churn in a small farmhouse in Ruxburg, in New York Slate. Jay Gould's father was a small dairy farmer, and part of his equipment was a rotary churn which was worked by a dog or a sheep, whichever chanced to be available. When both failed to put in an appearance, as frequently happened, the .fa'imer's young son was called into requisition to work tne churn. After a time he rebelled against the drudgery of ths >vprk, and the result of the consequent floggings was that he ran away from his home and secured %york in a blacksmith's shop. Shortly afterwards he entered a store as a clerk, and within a few years the profits derived from a mousetrap invention, and a lucky purchase of a small plot of land in Albany. Liid the- foundation of his fortune of 60.000,000d015. . The nurseiy •of the vast Astor fortune, which is estimated at £80,000,000 sterling, half of which is'in real estate in New Y.ork City, was a small plot of land in the Bowery which was bought for a sum of £260.- This tiny plot, which is now wortE 200.000d015, was bought out of the profits • of a small consignment of musical instruments sent to John Jacob Astor, the founder of the family. ! Fifty years ago Mr Andrew Carnegie, the ' millionaire of Pittsburg, was earning 5s a ' week as a bobbin boy in Allegheny City. His father had been a small master weaver in Scotland, when the introduction of steam looms robbed him of his small livelihood, and he was compelled to emigrate to America. Mr Carnegie tells a pathetic story of these early days in the cotton factory, when he left home in the dark and returned in the dark, and slaved through all thfs intervening . hours for lOd a day. When, later, he was able to earn 12s a week as a Pittsburg telegraph messenger he was convinced thafc his " ship had come home," little dreaming of the days when hit daily iivnme would be counted in thousands of pound' and his fortune would run far into the millions. A small farm was the cradle of all the Rockefeller millions, of which John D. Rockefeller alone owns 40. Fifty years ago ? ; the boy who was to become the richest man , the world has ever seen was driving a i plough on his father's farm, and his wildest 1 ambition was to appear in the ring of a i circus. - When, in later years, he was receiving a salary of £10 a month at a clerk, and the future millions, hidden in the oil springs, were not even dreamt of. he counted his life a brilliant success To-day every halfhour of his life brings him a larger income than he then made in a year ; and everyday yields him a year's salary of our Chancellor of the Exchequer . The nursery of the wealthiest family in the world's history, the Rothschilds, whose aggregate wealth, distributed over 20 families, is said to be £40Q,000,000, wan fe

dingy pawnbroker's shop in the Inden"gasse, at Frankfort, in the middle of last century. In this quaint house, with its sign of the Red Shield, the first brood of budding millionaires, five sons and five daughters, was reared, while the father drove hard bargains for a few ounces of old silver or chaffered about the advance on a bundle of old clothes.

The same story is told of Mackay, whose pick was his fortune in the days of the Comstock lode; of Vanderbilt, the bargeman ; of Liechtenstein, the paperboy and applestall minder ; of Armour, Yerkes, Beltnont, Goelet, and a dozen other men who count their gold in millions.

Of our own millionaires, Sir Thomas Lipton, the most recent, is the son of poor Irish parents. His first venture in life was as cabin-boy on a coaster, and wh'en, later, he became a shop assistant, he is said to have been glad to sleep undei the counter. The late Sir Isaac Hoiden began life as a weaver, and in later years thought himself passing rich on £1 a week as a teacher. The maker of the Morrison millions was a penniless boy, who was found .starving on the staircase of tho great business house of which he was to become the' chief partner ; and a score more of our millionaires have built their wealth on equally slender foundations.