ENGLISH ROTHSCHILDS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XIX, 30 October 1897, Page 582

ENGLISH ROTHSCHILDS.

The greatest financial genius of the Rothschild family, though there have been many of great talent, was Nathan Mayer of the second generation, who established the house of N. M. Rothschild and Co. in 1798 in London. He flew to the stars and grovelled in the mud for money (says a writer in Harper’s ‘ Round Table’). He welcomed all transactions, big or little, wherewith to turn the banker’s penny. He was the most daring speculator of his time on the Stock Exchange and the most successful. He had carrier pigeons and fast-sailing boats to bring him the earliest news from the war centres of Europe, and so help him to manipulate stocks. He followed Wellington’s army to Waterloo in person, and had relays of the swiftest horses and a fast yacht lying in the harbour at Ostend. So he arrived at the London Stock Exchange, after the battle, twelve hours ahead of any public announcement of the victory, and made $5,000,000 by one of the most tremendous series of speculations in history. In 1810, when the Duke of Wellington, then commanding in Spain, drew on the English Government for £3,000,000, and the English treasury was short, Nathan bought the drafts at a big discount and at once sent the money. The stories altout this remarkable man are almost endless, and show how strangely he was alike equal to the most tremendous schemes and the pettiest tricks of avarice.