Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1884 — MISERS AND THEIR HOARDS. [ARTICLE]

MISERS AND THEIR HOARDS.

Eumous Grubbers of Gold and tlie Wealth y They Hid. ] There is every reason to believe that the hoards of money and valuables one often ".ends pf as/having been discovered by workman while engaged in pulling down old houses have been secreted by misers; the result is that, in many cases, property thus found is taken possession of by persons whom the miser never intended to benefit namely—their heirs-at-law and next of kin.

It is pretty certain that misers of both sexes existed ages ago, ai they do in our own day,, and the following notes concerning some notable examples of this class of monomaniacs may not be uninteresting. Of those who made it a rule of their lives to “gather gear by every wile.” the case of M. Osterwald, who died at Paris in 1791, is remarkable, as showing that the richest man in a city may also be the most miserable one. He was the son of a poor minister, and began life as a clerk in a banking-house at Hamburg, where he acquired a small sum, which he augmented bv his speculations in business and his ecoraical mode of living; he afterward came to Paris, where he accumulated his enormous fortune. He was a bachelor—the expenses of a wife and children being incompatible with his frugal mode of living. He had for a servant a poor wretch, whom he never permitted to enter his apartment; he had always promised that at his death he should be handsomely recompensed, and accordingly he left him a pittance of six months’ wages and a suit of clothes, but, as he expressly stated, “none the most new.” A few days before his ddftth some of his acquaintances, who saw that ho was reduced to the last extremity by want of nourishment, proposed to him to have some soup, “Yes, yes,” he replied, “it is easy to talk of soup, but what is to become of the meat?” Thus died one who was re-< ported to be the richest man in Paris, more from want of care and proper nourishment than from disease. He is stated to have left to relations, whom he had probably never seen, the sum of £3,000,000. Under liis bolster was found 800,000 livres iu paper money. The neighborhood where Mary Luhorne died seems to be still famous for its misers. In 1877 there died at Woolwich, England, a Mr. John Clarke, aged 86. He is described as having been a man of education, but a very singular character; althpngh reputed as immensely wealthy, he was very miserly in his habits, and lived to the last in a squalid hovel in the poorest part of Woolwich; the greater portion of his life was spent in the accumulation of books, of which he left a large store. It was reported that the front shutters of his house had not been opened for over thirty years; he never took a regular meal, nor did he know the taste of wines or spirits. Yet, notwithstanding that he lived in such a den and suffered such privations, he reached an octogenarian age, and died worth $'200,000 or thereabouts. An instance of miserly habits in the great and noble is to be found in the ease of that renowned captain, the Duke of Marlborough, of whom it is chronicled that, when in the last stage of life and very infirm, he would walk from the public room in Bath to his lodgings on a cold, dark night, to save sixpence in chair hire. He died worth $7,500,000. It is recorded of Sir James Lowther that after changing a piece of silver in George’s coffee-house, and paying twopence for his dish of coffee, he was helped into his chariot (he was then very lame and infirm), an<J went homeSome time after he returned to the same coffee-house on purpose to acquaint the woman who kept it that she had given him a bad half-penny, and demanded another in exchange for it. Sir James is stated to have then had about $200,000 per annum coming in, and was at a loss whom to appoint liis heir. ■ y. * » >\ Sir Thomas'Colbv, an official high in office, shortened his existence by his passion for this world’s goods, a* appears by tho following anecdote:« “He rose in the middle of the night when he was in a very profuse perspirtion and walked down stairs to look for the cellar key he had inadvertently left on a table in the parlor; he was appre liensive that his servants might seize the key and rob him of a battle of port wine, instead of which he himself was seized with a chill and died intestate, leaving over $1,000,000 in the funds, which was shared by five or six day Liborers, who were his next of kin.” Marvelous good luck lor his poor relations ! At Northfield, England, there died in 1772, a Mr. Page, dealer in limestone and gunffints, by which occupation, and by a most penurious way of living, he had accumulated a fortune of some $60,000. Be lived alone in a large house for several years, no one coming near him but an old woman in the village, who once a day went to make his bed. His death was occasioned by his running a knife into the palm of his hand while opening an oyster. Some years since a ehift’onnier (or rag and refuse gatherer) died intestate in France, having literally “scraped” together 400,000 francs, the whole of which went to the heir-at-law. —Neic York Star.