CURIOUS FREAKS OF MILLIONAIRES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6090, 29 January 1898, Page 7

CURIOUS FREAKS OF MILLIONAIRES.

(Tit Bits.) Jacob J. Astor's most recent idea is having a miniature railway constructed all round his vast park, exactly on the model of an ordinary everyday working railway. On this line runs an engine, three or four carriages and a guard's van. There are signal-boxes and everything complete. It is said that the millionaire himself often acts as driver of the little engine, and has, on several occasions, gratified his guests by driving them round this new pleasure course! Well, after all, it is a harmless way of enjoyment, even for a millionaire ; and if it doesn't benefit the world at large much, there are men of vast wealth who do much worse things. There is a noted English millionaire in the peerage who never enjoys himself so much as when going about in an old suit and hat, both ,of which, might l^ave done duty for thirty years. In this garb nobody outside his own family and closest friends would possibly recognise him, and hence he gets much enjoyment v out of the frank opinions he hears of himself and bis doings from those in his vicinity. It is said, on one occasion, seeing a workman digging as if lie had never handled a pick before, the millionaire* who had come up in the usual disguise above mentioned, took hold of it and dug vigorously to show hhn how to use it. "There," said he, "that is the way I should dig, if I were you." "Isit ? " inquired the other. " But I reckon it wouldn't be, mister, if tha only got twenty-two bob a week for doing it!" j What reply his lordship made to this is ■ not on record, but as he went away he,*''

doubtless, thought the man was not far wrong after all. Mr Walter Winans, who has recently •come info a huge fortune, by the^deafch^of his father — a fortune of nearly two millions —has, though an American, long lived in England. Strangely enough, he : has made revolver shooting not only a hobby, but a really serious business in life. So much so that now, without .doubt, he is the champion revolver-shot of the world. Some of his feats are simply marvellous. He has shot at six visiting cards edgeways consecutively, at a distance of five-yards, and cut five out of six completely in two! On another occasion he fired at a bull'seye, three inches wide, at a distance of sixteen yards, and hit it every time with, thirty-three consecutive shotß! One of California's most famous.million* aires had, when he first set foot on Californian soil, "little more than he stood up in," as the saying goes. Ab ho worked daily in his master's store he always took his lunch at a neighbouring tavern, not of the highest grade, where he invariably had a chop and half a pint of beer, with bread, for which he paid tenpence. As things improved with him he still adhered to this lunch, at the same old place, and-even when he became a partner in the firm, would not leave his old quarters to accompany his other partner to the palatial hotel which the latter patronised. Even to-day he still frequents the little tavern, and has "the regular," as he calls it, winch-served him in the days when he had a guinea and a half per week, instead of nearly five hundred guineas a week, coming in. And there may be mentioned in connection with this article the strange freak of -the late Lord Waterford, who, if not exactly a millionaire, was yet a very wealthy man. It is on record'that once,.in order to settle a dispute about; bis riding abilities, when:his regiment wa&qnartered in York, he rode his horse up the stairs leading to the De Grey rooms —by no means an easy flight —and having got inside the dining-room, where the table nvusalleet cmt f or^dmnaiy he jumped the .steed at one bound olean over the lot, without touching even the , table >decorations. '