Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1874 — SAD FATE OF A MISER. [ARTICLE]

SAD FATE OF A MISER.

A Beggar Woman Having Three Hundred Dollars In Her Possession, Found on (he Streets in New Yorlt City in .. Starving Condition. In the City of New York, a few day ago, a policeman discovered what he supposed was a heap of rags lying upon tiie steps of a house. A closer examination disclosed a pale, trembling, emaciated old woman (Margaret Fitzsimmons, aged sixty-two) whose thin apparel was far from, sufficient either to hide her ■nakedness or to preserve warmth. The officer took the woman to the station, and from thence to the hospital, for it was evident that she was the victim of consumption, and that she had but little longer to live. Food was offered her and she devoured it as would a ravenous animal. She stated that she had not eaten anything for several days, and that she was starving. She was top weak to” endure a bath, and her clothes were removed and she was placed in a bed. Her dress was tattered, black with dirt, and filled with vermin; and when it was carelessly thrown aside by an attendant, the old creature sprang out of bed and seized and chuckled over it as though it weFe precious beyond compare. The exertion was too much for her, and soon after she died. Upon examining the dress it was found to be absolutely quilted with money. It contained nineteen pockets, each of which was filled with money, from pennies up to dollars. About S3OO were found, including $8 in pennies. Tbe bank bills, of which there were many, were absolutely rotten and crumbling to pieces. The' unfortunate old woman was a miser—one of those queer persons w hom not even the pangs of hunger could induce to spend sufficient to buy food. She hath no home, and had evidently been begging and starving herself for years, just in order to scrape together tiie S3OO which was found in her worm-eatea dress.