THE LATE BARON HIRSCH.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue I, 4 July 1896, Page 4

THE LATE BARON HIRSCH.

The life of Baron Hirsch (says the St. James' Gazette) reads like a romance. He was the son of the Court banker ot Bavaria, and was sent to the Athenee at Brussels when a lad of thirteen. He left that Academy in 1846, at the age of seventeen, and, with the audacity of genius, started business for himself as a financier in the Belgian capital. He did not distinguish himself at the Athenee, and no one seems to have suspected his striking talents ; but once out of tutelage, and free to use his brains as it seemed best to him, he developed an astonishing ability for business, and was attended by marvellous success. He doubled and trebled the substantial patrimony furnished him from Bavaria, and then allied himself to the banking-house of M. Bischoffsheim. Everything he touched prospered exceedingly, and before he was thirty he indulged in speculations as large as any of those undertaken by the richest men on the Brussels Bourse. He greatly strengthened his position also by marriage with Mlle. Bischoffsheim, the heiress of the great Antwerp merchant, banker, and Belgian senator, and. with the means thus at his command, he speedily became a millionaire. Then he looked out for an opportunity to make a startling coup. A commercial crisis was impending, and when it came, in 1566. he was in a position to take the fullest advantage of others' misfor tunes. The banking business of M. Legrand Dumonceau came down with a crash as severe as that which befell the City of London when Overend and Gurney suspended payment. The monetary world of Belgium reeled under the shock. Young Hirsch had his pick of the assets, which included the Oriental railways—then consisting of the line from Constantinople to Adrianople, with a branch to Dedeagatch. When the reaction came and the revival of confidence, he set himself to work to build up the fallen values. In this he was more than successful, and, extending his financial operations to every capital in Europe, he went on from million to million until he stood in the front rank of the world’s plutocrats Unlike many rich men who have made their money by finance.be spent with lavish freedom. Personally he was of almost simple tastes, and quite without ostentation of manner. He was of medium height, inclined to be spare rather than stout, with oval face, large and keen dark eyes, and a full but carefully trimmed moustache. To see him was to recognise in him a man of distinctive character and mental powers of no mean order. His frame also bore witness to the fact that his love of sport was not a mere affectation, but had a certain basis in physical training. He was a thorough sportsman, and a capital shot, and was wont to personally organise every detail of the arrangements for the hunting and shooting parties which he loved to collect at his Hungarian mansion, St. Johann, and at Eichhorn, in Moravia. The Prince of Wales was at St. Johann in 1890, and many members of the English aristocracy have at various times enjoyed the hospitality of the Baron at this stately residence, and shot over his famous preserves. His tenants, both in Hungary and Moravia, regarded him as a most indulgent landlord, and his life on his Austro-Hungarian properties was more like that of a

benevolent feudal lord than that of a rich magnate who had bought land for the mere love of possession. The keynote of the latter life of Baron Hirsch is to be sought in the bereavement which happened to him in 1888. His marriage with Mlle. Bischoffsheim was blessed with two children —a son and a daughter. The daughter died in early girlhood, and upon the son. Lucien, the Baron centered all his affections and hopes. The lad displayed extraordinary natural gifts. He had, indeed, inherited the remarkable mental powers of his father, with a strong bent towards scientific pursuits. His yonthful mind, unfettered as was his father's at a similar stage by the claims of finance and the ambition to make a fortune, was attracted by the sufferings of his co-religionists and perplexed by the tragic fate of his race. He followed his sister to the grave at the age of twenty, and henceforth it became a sacred duty with the Baron to give practical expression to his son’s ideals. This it is which amounts for the lavish liberality of the Baron during recent years. His son’s fortune was estimated at his death to be about five millions, and this sum the Baron allocated to philanthropic purposes. He started plans for the training of Jews in Russia, Hungary, Roumania, and Galicia, in agricultural and industrial pursuits ; and many a successful Jewish farmer in South Russia and Eastern Europe to-day owes his start in pursuits for which he was hitherto thought to be naturally unfitted to the munificence of the Baron. Large sums were distributed in the towns to start Jews in business and to counteract the effectsof anti-Semitism. He had few intimate friends, but numerous highplaced and influential acquaintances, who appreciated his abilities and probably recognised the depth of character which underlay his careful assumption of blase and indifferentcynicism.