Rich Man’s Road to Ruin.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5245, 11 April 1908, Page 1

Rich Man’s Road to Ruin.

Last Stages Described in His Diary. A fashionably-dressed Englisman, Mr Edward C. Brooks, who for months has speculated on a large scale on the American stock markets, swallowed a doße of cyanide of potassium and fell dead in the ante-room of the Produce Exchange, New York, on 7th February. The tragic scene was witnessed by a score of brokers, who, seeing the man topple over, rushed to his assistance, only to find him doad. One hand clutched the bottlo of poison and the other a diary, in which a few moments previously Mr Brooks, in a firm flowing hand, had made u final entry declaring that he had been swindled. In a postscript lie requested the authorities to communicate his death to his relatives in England. The dead man came to this country several years ago with a small fortune, which he invested in a farm in. the west. With this he was so successful that he moved to Chicago, and began to gamble on the Stock Exchange. His speculations were unusually fortunate, and he migrated to New York. lie soon became well-known in Wallstreet as a plunger. In the diary, which is a most remarkable human document, he recorded every detail of his financial transactions of the last two years, interlarding accounts of thoso with funny stories and witticisms Current in Wall-street.

lie got caught to the extent of £<Booo in the March panic last year, hut consoled liimsolf with wise saws, and “plunged” again and again until lie was reduced to his last penny. Of a fortune of £25,000, only threepence and a number of debts yesterday remained. Then, in a fit of despair, he wrote the following entry: —“All my money is finally gone. I cannot oven raise £lO on mining shares. There is awful depression in all lines of business, and no hope remains for me.”

In the last few weeks Mr Brooks vainly tried to obtain a position as porter at several brokers’ offices, studied ways and means of living cheaply in New York, and jottod down in his diary addrossos of various poor lodging-houses, with particulars of the prices charged for bed and breakfast. But ho always dressed in fashionable style, and only decided to commit suicide, as ono of the last entries gxplains, after convincing himself of the hopelessness of oven trying to obtain menial employment.