Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1876 — The Stewart Fortune. [ARTICLE]

The Stewart Fortune.

It is highly probable that the widow of Alexander T. Stewart will be annoyed and persecuted beyond measure by beggars of various degrees, even now that Judge Hilton is employed to assist her in disbursing it. If she had retained the whole she could not, during her life, give away more than the merest fraction of the interest of her vast fortune. If she knew on whom to bestow it, and occupied all her time in making small donations, she could not give it all away during her lifetime. Suppose her to be worth $50,000,000. and to disburse only the interest, she could get rid of SIO,OOO a day, or SI,OOO every working hour. In other words, she could perpetually give away sl6 a minute for ten hours of every working day and new touch the principal! If resolved to transfer to others the entire fortune, it would take her a year if she counted, out $8.50 a second. In SIOO bills, laid end to end, it would reach from the Battery to Central Park. If divided into $1 bills, and kept at componnd interest, neither Mrs. Stewart nor any single line of successors could ever count it and give it away, even if the counting were continued for thousands of years ana each coanted as fast as possible. If it was all in $lO bills and a thief should get adfcess to the pile and take one bill a minute, it would require more than thirty years for him to capture the fortune. Then in some States he could be punished only for petit larceny* .because .the individual thefts Would amount to'**' less than $15.” On the whole, Mrs. Stewart and her legal Cerebus are not to be envied.— N. T. Graphic,