FROM THE COTTAGE, TO A PALACE.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7749, 15 July 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

FROM THE COTTAGE, TO A PALACE.

THE ROMANCE OF MCLTIAIILLIONAIRES’ WIVES. There are to-day across Hie Atlantic, scores of women living in palaces and surrounded by a wealth of luxury which queens might well envy, who can recall the days when they were thankful to he able to “make ends meet” cn the equivalent of two pounds a week, and when an annual income of £3OO seemed t nattainable riches. In her old age. when Mrs. Russell Sage, widow cf the famous “Wizard of Wall Street,’’ Is "won led to death,” as she pathetically puts it. in her efforts to dispose ol a few of her husband's millions in charity, she confesses that she looks back with longing to the days when she was the happiest young wile in the States — "passing rich,” in happiness if not in dollars, in her modest framehouse, proudly keeping her domestic expenses down to thirty shillings a week. "We were just able to keep the wolf from the door," the Croesus of later years said: “but my wife quickly adapted herself to the poor home which was all I could offer her. There were struggles and trials and disappointments enough In all conscience: lint we smiled through them all and went on side by side until I began to see land. And poo. ns we were, thanks to my wife, ■vve were able to put by at least a quarter of m.v small income every year. Mr. (’. M. Schwab was earning a modest ton shillings weekly in a Bradford grocery store when be had the courage to ask Emma E. Dinkey, a school teacher as poor as himself, to share his life: and when he found employment to drive stakes at a dollar n day for the Carnegie Companylie considered himself rich enough to lead his bride to the altar at Loretto. And never did a poor man’s bride find in wedlock such a dramatic revolution in her lifo Within a year of his wedding day Emma’s husband was earning £IOOO a year: and before she had been a bride a score of years lie counted his millions to more, than his fingers on bis hands; was drawing a salary, in addition, of £IOO,OOO a year as preside nt of the great American Steel Trust; and had installed his wife an chateline of three of the most palatial homes in America. Little less dramatic was the experience of Mary Mahegan, a pretty Irish girl, who. fifty years or so ago. was muid-of-all-work at a small inn on the wharf of St. Paul, Minnesota. Mary’s runny smile and dainty freshness play, d havoc with the hearts of many of the wharf labourers who called at the pin to quench their thirst: but she laughed at all their clumsy wooing until James J. I I'll, of the brawny muscles and sirong tapable lace, joined the ranks of her admirers, and after a brisk wooing had little difficulty in caivying off the priza. It was but a poor home to which the wharf-porter, with his couple of dollars a day, was able to take his bride. "We lived largely on love,” lie said in later and very different >(uis" and were as happy as two ng birds; and ii was a long, uphill struggle before 1 could offer her a home which 1 considered at all worthy cf her.” But the long lane turned at last, and led to such a land of gold that, before Mary had worn her wedding-ring a score of years, she was mistress cf a mansion which had cost £IIO,OOO to build, and from whom windows she couhl look down on the little inn in which as maid-cf-all-work she had won the heart of the porter who was destined to he one of the world’s richest men. JESTING AT POVERTY. Mr. Horton, president of the Western Dillon and a millionaire many times over, has often told the story of his early wedded life, when ho would gladly have bartered all his prorpects of riches for an assured £3OO a year. “They were days of terrible struggle," he says, “for J married on £f*o a year, with small hope at the time of expanding my income. 1 had not sufficient money to furnish even a couple of rooms decently, and I remember it took my wife six months to save enough to buy our first carpet B*ut I can truly say, in spite of our poverty, It was the happiest time of my life. You see we were both young, wc loved each other dearly, and our very struggles were only material for light-hearted laughter.” When Mr. W. M. Strong, another American Croosus. made his plunge into matrimony, it was a plunge of desperation. At the time he was a salesman cn a very modest income: he was burdened with the support of

a widowed mother and a family of brothers and sisters, and his bride had, as he tells us, “been accustomed to many of the refinements and elegancies of life. Yet she was content to accept my poor lot, and we had to do a lot of managing in those days to keep up appearances. 1 remember how we scraped and saved, cutting a little here and a little there, to buy our first drawing-room set, and the joy that filled our hearts as we sat in the midst of our newly-ac-quired household goods can only be known once in a man’s life.” John D. Rockefeller, the world’s richest man, was sorting beans in a dingy Cleveland warehouse, with a very precarious income of a few dol--1 lars a week, when he invited Laura Spelman to share his unknown and unpromising ftiture, and there were several years of povery and struggle before he at last struck the oil which was to float him to riches beyond tho dreams of avarice. "And yet,” be says, "small as my income was, we managed to live ana s'ave money, thanks to the most thrifty wife a man over had. and our joy in spending five dollars to the best advantage was far greater than the spending of a million ever gave me In later years.”

How these millions came when once the corner was tinned is shown by the following statement:—ln 186-5. his capital .all told was £I00K); in 1870 it was £10,000; in 1 875 it had grown to £100,000; ten years later it was ten millions; in 1 890 it had reached twenty millions; and in 1 899 fifty millions. To-day John D. Rockefeller’s fortune is estimated .at. £100,0)00,000; and, as he confessed not long ago, "l would part with it all to live again the happy, care-free days when the heart was young and life was full of joy for us both.” Mr. Henry Clews, the millionaire banker and financier when recalling the days of his early wedded life, says:—“My wife had been .accustomed to wealth and a fine establish* ment, while I was a poor man still struggling to get my feet on the ladder, and almost despairing of ever getting a foothold. Yet she did not disdain to share my poor lot. Tho worst of it was that my position was better than my income, and no one but a man in that predicament can realise the shifts to which J was reduced to keep my end up. How bravely and self-sacriflcingly my wife helped me is one of the sweetest memories of my life.” A LESSON IN THRIFT.

"There,” Mr. Clews adds, "is an example for all girls and all men to follow. Unhappily, in these days, women look out for wealth and demand It all the time. They want dresses; they want luxuries; they have no real love of home. They look upon a husband as a convenience.” When Mr. Ransom, another Croesus, was once asked, "How did you begin your married life?” lie answered, “I began it on ten dollars (£2) a week up in Elmira. 1 had como back .a year before from the war, broken, penniless, and wounded. I had about 200 dollars (£4O) besides my pay. I loved a girl who was still poorer than myself. Well, we decided that we would marry anyhow ana take our chances in the lottery. We wont to boarding at six dollars a week in a little two-pair back. Tt seems strange to look back on now. But we were very happy, and when things improved a little we moved into a little frame-house of two stories. Dear me! To think of the day that we bought the ormulu clock and put it on'the mantelpiece Ip the best parlour! We sat right down in front of It. arm In arm, and feasted our eyes on the most prized of all our fe.arthly treasures.” Air. Chauncey Depcw, the wellknown millionaire lawyer, confessed that lie started wedded life, not only n poor man but heavily in debt. ”T loved a lovely girl.” he tells us, “the daughter of a prominent business man who lived In a handsome style. All the world supposed liini to be a

very rich man: ! knew that he was on the verge of bankruptcy, and before we had been married many months the crash came. As for me, I was not only practically pcnnllosM, but heavily in debt; so we had to practise self-denial, study a thousand Bttle economies, and yet keep up a semblance of style before the world in which we lived. Tn those times, when fifty dollars a week was a goou salary, I was often for the prominent position I held, poorer than any mechanic because my expenses were so much heavier.” When George Stephen led pretty Annie Kane to the altar, 63 years ago, he had not long left a warehouse Tn St. Paul’s Churchyard to earn a few’ dollars weekly in an American store, end he little dreamt that one day he would wear the coronet of a British Peer, as Lord Mount Stephen, and own more millions than ho then possessed hundreds. THE ASTOR MILLIONS. Such are a few stories of the early wedded days of the world’s wealthiest men of recent times and they might easily be multiplied almost indefinitely. And similar stories are fold of the days when a multi-mil-lionaire was almost as rare as a dodo. Thus the first. Jacob Astor, who left a fortune of £4.000.000, took his bride to a very aordid home in a New York slum, where they spent their honeymoon in tending their little music-shop, and “curing and packing skins." Commodore Vanderbilt, who .accumulated £ 15,>000,000 before he laid down the burden of his riches, was making a very precarious income by carrying vegetables between New York and Staten Island, when lie m.ade a wife of his cousin, pretty Sophia Johnson; and Jay Gould, who was able to leave £15,oOO.POft to his six children, .had only just emancipated himself from street-hawking wlxpn lie made his venture into matrimony.