Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1895 — Petty Economies. [ARTICLE]

Petty Economies.

Shoes were the pet meanness of a distinguished English nobleman whose ground rents in London alone would have shod all its inhabitants for centuries to come. It is related of him that he once took his favorite pair in person to a cobbler, and that after carefully examining them the man said to him, *‘l never saw the like since I’ve been at the business. You are either the greatest pauper in England, or the Marquis of . ” “I am tlie marquis, and not the pauper,” said his lordship and far from being offended, seemed greatly amused. To mount a new pair of i shoe-strings, even, is pain and grief to him, and a new pair of shoes always brings on a violent fit of gout, so vehemently is he opposed to the sad necessity of donning them at all. Lord Eldon was a peer of this pattern, only he proceeded to the other extremity, and would never allow his wife and daughters but one bonnet between them. One wonders what pretty Betty Surtees saw in him to induce her to elope with him, cost what it might. There is a Frenchman whose eccentricity in respect of a pet meanness is very often commented upon in Paris, for, though he has a model establishment and positively rolls in money, he cannot bear to use towels freely—his own or his neighbors'. It is said that upon staying at one of the old castles of Brittany fora week he took his hostess aside privately and showed her over three dozen towels that he had been gloating over for days. “All these, madame, I have saved,” he remarked, with great delight. “Your servants put them in my room, it is true, but I and my wife have only used one between us. Servants are careless, wasteful creatures. I return the rest. ”