MILLIONAIRE MACKAY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 28, 6 November 1885, Page 23

MILLIONAIRE MACKAY.

(From the Chicago Herald.) The story of John W. Mackay's buying the New York Herald, or rather BauX°, nn H gin tw 1 " BHid> " tR u king lfc for debt »" ha 9 been appropriately eque'ched. That was perhaps the silliest canard of the season. Kignt here it ought xo be said that there is more nonsense written wZ # ?h ? a °$ a ? tbaa P erha Psany other rich man in America Host of the twaddle about his wealth ia the veriest romance. He ia in truth very rich, richer than almost any American who, withoat me am or cucb advantages as may come from pure chance, c»n erer bope to become, but the fashion that many have of ranking viackay with the Monte CrUtos of the earth is absurd. There are scores of men in America richer than Mackay, and who have their wealth better invested and more in hand. The great bonanza firm reached trie climax of its golden romance in 1876. Their stocks in thw bonanza mines were then worth perhapj 100,000,000d015. The mines in wbicn they had a controlling interest were paying 2,000,000d015. a month, but this went gradually down and went rapidly. That firm, as a brm, never realised more than 300,000d015. a month profit. Ibis was enough to give romance to the silver cave, and if it had held out in treasure it would no doubt have made Mackay, Flood, Fair and O Bnen the richest people on the earth's surface. But it did not hold out. O'Brien died in 1878, while these stocks were yet paying dividends, and while their market value was yet away up. Hi 8 B to c k ß were disposed of at market rat«s, yet his whole estate settled up but 9,000,000d01a. Every bonani* interest tumbled after that. Its stocks, stamp mills, wood and water interest*, and all went to the dogs. Mackay.it is well known, had twice , «,«" Otber P1""1^8P 1 "" 1^ 8 had. Therefore, if he had died in the place SnnnA^nV, 1 th<J tilQe th<3 latter dld his eßtate WOul(1 have Come *© iSU.vuUjJoodols. or thereabouts. That was the very climax of bonanza wealth.

Mr. Mackay never was richer than 20,000,000d018. even on paper, tie has been known as the poorest investor of any of the bonanza arm. He never yet made an investment, except in Government or Mate bonds, that yielded a dollar of income. All his speculative investments have come to naught. Ha gives away vast sums, squanders other vast sums, and we all know what Mrs. Mackav accomplishes in the way of expenditure. One day, in front of the Nevada tfank, in ban Francisco, Mr. Mackay read in a paper handed to him an absurd statement that Mrs. Mackay had offered to buy the Arc de Jnomphe, ia Paris, for 2,000,000 franca. "You may say," said John Win his broad North of Ireland accent, " that Mra. Mackay is no tool and neither is John Mackay. That is a dom he, sor. An' you may say, mon, that if John Mackay was fool enough to pay for that arch or any other arch, begad, sor, he don't know where in h— the money is comm' from. They've bled me, sor, like a lot of wolves. Ibey say Mrs. Mackay has spent half a million a year in Europe, it 8 adorn he, sor. She lives like a lady and I want her to do so, but, begad, oO.OOOdols. a year pays all her expenses, balls and all, for a whole year. They B aid the other day she spent 50,000d015. on a single ball to Grevy or somebody-Gad knows who he is,— but that ia a he, sor. She don't spend 50,000d015. in a whole year in Paris. nay that, will you, sor ?" Mr. Mackay was sincere in this. Mrs. Mackay is not near the spendthrift that a lot of romance writers try to make her out. Yet John s own admission tnat her expenditures'were 50,000d015. a year, or thereabouts, is enough to make workers growl and people of small means weep. Fifty thousand a year to idle away ! Just for a woman and a woman s pride ! A woman, daughter of a barbar— a barbar in Downieville, Cal., in 1856, now ' Colonel ' J. H. Huagerford, of the Boulevard des Male*herbes— the knightly father-in-law of the great " American Midra*, ' as the French love to call Mackay. After all, it is a stupendous joke. And the Prince Telfeuner, of Italy, married the youngest of the barber's daughters, and the Prince Colonna, heir of the greatest house of Italy, married Mackay's step-daughter— her father was a poor little druggist in a mining camp in Nevada City. Could any rough or vigorous romance ever find such expression?