EXTRAORDINARY SPENDTHRIFTS.

Rodney and Otamatea Times, Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette, 19 June 1912, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY SPENDTHRIFTS.

In the annals of the Bankruptcy Court may be found details of some extraordinary rapid methods by which large fortunes have been dissipated.

A gentleman who came in for a fortune of half a million sterling when he was twenty-five went bankrupt for £1,000, with assets nil, ten years later, and died afterwards in Paris in great poverty. His particular method of getting rid of money was that of financing small revolutions in different parts of the world. He financed a revolution in Brazil which never came off; this venture ran away with ,£50,000. A small revolution in Peru cost him £25,000; but in connection with a bigger one in the Argentine he lost close upon £200,000.

The eldest son of a peer was in the Bankruptcy Court six years after he had inherited a fortune of £250, 000 bequeathed to him by an aunt. His lordship had a peculiar and expensive hobby which consisted in buying hotels. When he stayed at an hotel that he particularly liked, he would buy it, put in a manager, and have it run on his own lines, usually with the result tliat the hotel lost most of its customers in a short

time

He purchased hotels in Paris, in Nice, in Berlin, and in many parts of the United States. His biggest loss was over an hotel he purchased in Chicago. He paid for the house as a going concern, and sold it twelve months later, for 000. At one time he owned no fewer than thirty hotels in different parts of the world.

Altogether he lost in six years by these ventures.

Another remarkable method of getting rid of money was adopted by the son of a wealthy Lancashire manufacturer, who, at his father's death, inherited a fortune of .£l5O, 000, and was in the Bankruptcy Court eight years later.

Among the various extravagances he indulged in was that of continually ordering special trains. He must have been a perfect gold mine to the railway companies. All told, he spent in eight years half his fortune on "sDecials."

One of His journeys, from Paris to Marseilles, cost him The "special' consisted of two specially-fitted saloon carriages for himself and his friends, a "kitchen" car, with a large alley.