What Men Have Done for Money

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIV, Issue 22, 3 June 1905, Page 49

What Men Have Done for Money

What have men not done for money? The money motive, indeed, is present in most of the enterprises anti affairs in which man concerns himself, if we except those undertaken through the influence of the purer affections and noble ambitions.

It was for money that the maritime adventurers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries sailed over unknown seas in quest of mythical El Dorados; for money that the alchemists of old dedicated their lives to the search after the philosopher’s stone; for money that the great Duke of Marlborough allowed his reputation and honour to be tarnished by accepting bribes; for money that Arkwright and so many other notable inventors wrought while solving the mechanical problems the elucidation of which gave England her industrial greatness; for money that Fauntleroy forged; that Law schemed; and that Eugene Aram committed murder.

So the catalogue might be continued through endless ramific itions, the list being added to from every state and condition of life—political, professional, commercial, literary, artistic, and even religious. The inducement of money is the prime mover of the universe. Often cursed as the “root of all evil,’’ it has been as often blessed as the “provider of all good.” English kings have done some strange tl.jngs for money. Richard 1. raised money for his military enterprise against Saladin by selling Crown manors and fortresses, and would have sold London itself if he could have found a purchaser. Jl'nry HI. sold or pledged the Crown jewels when in want of eash ; and when Edward I. got them back again, and added largely to them, they were stolen by thieves—also for money’s sake—while the monarch was away in the north having a tussle with the Scots. Another pawner of Crown jewels was the third Edward; and even the heroic Henry V. was compelled to pledge his “Skeleton Collar,” garnished with sapphires, rubies, and pearls, and his “Rich Collar,” valued at £2BOO, to raise funds to carry him and his army to France to chastise the jesting Dauphin. Henry VI. and James 1. both resorted to similar means of supplying their monetary needs; and Charles 1. cleared out the jewel-house altogether, sent the “baubles” to Holland, where the moneylenders would have nothing to do with them, and at last had to place them in the hands of merchants at home; the relief he thus obtained being of a very temporary nature, however, much trouble arising* subsequently when the king was asked to redeem the jewels. Later British rulers and princes have also gone great lengths in their schemings for money, but the Crown jewreis have not in recent times been regarded as marketable commodities.

Many strange things liavc been done for wagers, though in these matters other elements than the money' motive often weigh. A hunderad guineas was the wager competed for in a walking match from Hyde Park Coiner to Hammersmith between Mr. Penn and the Hon. Danvers Butler, on which occasion the Duchess of Gordon, in retort upon someone who had expressed regret that a young fellow like Penn should bo always playing some absurd prank, said, “Yes, it is a pity, but why don’t you advise him better? Penn seems to be a pen that everybody cuts and nobody mends.” A similar sum was won in 1724 by a noted maker of fireworks named Austin, who undertook to cook a big pudding ten ’ feet below the surface of the Thames. He accomplished the feat by putting the pudding into a large tin vessel, which he enclosed in a sackful of lime, and then let sack, pan, and pudding down to the required depth near Rotherhithe. After two hours and a half’s baking the pudding was hauled up out of the water and eaten with much relish, the only fault that was found with it being that it was a trifle overdone. Another sum was won. early in the reign of George 1 IT. by a gentleman who wagered that he would .jump into water seven feet, deep with all his usual clothing on and undress himself completely. He did it easily.

More than £lOOO was staked on another curious exploit in connection with the Thames. A butcher crossed the river from Somerset Stairs to thrj. Surrey side in his wooden tray, and seventy boat-loads of spectators witnessed the feat. Richard Jenkins, a York merchant, paved one hundred square yards with stone in nine hours for a large wager.

The money risk was certainly great when a gentleman wagered that he would stand on London Bridge for a whole day with a tray full of genuine sovereigns and offi?r them at a penny tach and not sell one. Report says that ho won bis bet, passers-by b lieving him to be a cheat. It is related of Sir John Throgmorton that, for a wager, one June morning in 1811. he had two of his Southdown sheep shorn, the wool washed, carded, slubbed, roved, spun, and woven, the cloth scoured, fulled, tented, raised, sheared, >4yed, and dressed, and at 6.30 p.m. the same day he actually wore the wool converted into a dresssuit at dinner!

Of eating, drinking, fasting, gambling, ana the like, w? need not particularly speak in our instances of what men done for money; nor is it necessary for us to dilate upon the terrible experiences of those who have made the misfortunes or vices of others the pivot on which to work money-grinding operations. Hush money is by no means a currency solely confined to sensational novels. There are plenty of traders in family skeletons in real life. Perhaps the most notable incident of this nature with which we have been made acquainted in recent times has been tht of a gentleman of high position who was socially ruined by a person who traded upon the possession of some secret information. To silence the assailant many sums of money had been paid, but the demands increased to such an extent that they could be borne no longer, and a public exposure followed, resulting in the collapse of a distinguished career. Confidential servants and discharged valets often wring large sums from their former employers under threat of disclosing secret matters, and it needs more moral courage than many men possess to defy these miscreants.