The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-06-07 00:00:00

The Times of Wednesday had a leader on the death
of the Baron, from which we make the following ex-
tracts :

The announcement of the death of Baron Lionel Nathan
de Rothe child, which we make this morning, will be received
with general regret. He bad, indeed, suffered so severely
from illness for many years that for his own sake there is
nothing to lament in his release. But to his nnmerous
friends and his family he will be a grievous loss, and there
passes away with him the living memorial of one of the most
interesting of recent episodes in our Constitutional history
He was born in 1808, and was the eldest son of Baron Nathan
Mayer de Rothschild, the founder of the great fortunes
of the English branch of the family. Ws father died
in 1836, and from that time he was at the head
of the English house, and was responsible for the
conduct of its vast and intricate affairs. His two brothers
Anthony and Baron Mayer—who died two or three
years ago were, indeed, associated with him, but it was upon
his sagacity and assiduity that the direction of the business
chiefly depended. It would be a great mistake to suppo.se,
as might, perhaps, be thought by the outside world, that this
business was like one of those settled establishments which
move with the regularity of a machine and which almost
conduct themselves: A business which simply consists in
the supply of some article of daily necessity, or in meet-
ing some fixed public demand, may be left to be admin-
istered almost entirely by able subordinates. But
It is far otherwise with a business which mainly de-
pends upon the delicate and incessant variations of the
money market in all parts of the world. This requires, in
the fist place, a sort of intultve baguet for appreciating
the effect of variations of exchange, which is, perhaps,-here-
' ditary, and cannot, like most forms of ability, be acquired
and the qualities upon which its due use de.
tooaloourldaetrfo. But this is only, as it were, the instrument of
n,
ponds are far higher. Everything, must, of course,
depend upon obtaining information from all parts of the
world, and upon forming a just estimate of it when ob-
tained; and for this is needed, not merely a knowledge
of men in general, but an almost cosmopolitan knowledge
of the peculiarities of various countries and nations.
judgment to
t Poli-
o eNxoerrciiss e dito anulliecrieen inaf otrtertshiost of
fl
ft
ii,crami
epdr oosfp
any
cntys are Intimately
great
on e triyu Art, lavneeda
ot nt
othe easnt
di mtaot e a tpop
rbee.
ciate these a close acquaintance is requisite with the course
of public affairs throughout the world and with the elle-
racter of public men. Baron Lionel de Rothschild pos-
sessed these qualities in a very eminent degree, and they
combined to render him, not merely a successful manager
great house, but a very considerable Notre in
the is
e his
and political world. Nothing diverted him
from attention to the daily operations of his firm,
and almost to the last he held in his hands the
threads of all its Intricate interests. He was as thorough
and as careful in its management every day as if ho was lay-
ing over again the foundation of his house's fortunes.
Vague and immeasurable conceptions of the wealth of the
house of Rothschild seem to possess the popular mind: but
they are, probably, great exaggerations of the reality. There
was, at any rate, nothing lavish or ostentatious in any thing
ii e late Baron did. He was lib ral, hut never extravagant,
and he was as judicious in his expenditure on the ornaments
and conveniences of life as in his management of his busi-
ness. If there was one exception to his carefulness in this
respect, it was in his charitable expenditure, to which there
was no apparent limit. . . .
The Times, in continuation, reviews the late Baron's
position in the political world, and his services in the
efforts for the emancipation of the Jew* from parliamentary
disabilities; and concludes the leader by saying He
awaited patiently the operation of the more generous im-
pulses of the Legislature, and when the victory was gained
no ill-feeling remained on either suite. In fact, Baron de
Rothschild, by his courtesy, his hospitality, his refined and
liberal character, still more than by his wealth, had ren-
dered himself one of the most honoured members of
English society, and to exclude him any longer from the
Legislature became at once absurd and inconsistent with the
most elementary sense of justice. Causes are more frequently
won in England than in any other country by the personal
influence of those who represent them, and Baron de
Rothschild's political triumph consisted in the fact that
men could not persist in denyir g political rights to a race of
which he was the natural as welt as the formal representa-
tive. It needed in short, a-singular combination of firm-
ness, patience, and ability to achieve such a conspicuous
success in such various spheres—to conduct the business of
one of the greatest and most delicate of commercial under-
takings, to win one of the foremost positions in English society,
and by means of these two influences together to vindicate
the rights of a race long the victims of bigotry and injustice.
The same combination constituted an enduring charm In the
daily intercourse of life, and there are many who will always
remember Baron de Rothschild with a regard and a respect
which are only won by gracious personal qualities, improved
by an assiduous observation alike ut the duties and the
graces of life."

The Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild would, says the
Daily News, have been a remarkable man even if he had
not been at the head of one of the most important
organizations known to the Modern world. To have been
the chief of such an organization, to have conducted
its vast and complicated affairs with unvarying
steadiness and success, would give evidence of an
intelligence equal to the governing of states. Indeed, the
business of the prime minister of many a small
State must have been simple and easy when com-
pared with that to which the constant attention of
the head of the House of Rothschild had to be given.
Baron Rothschild will be long remembered in this country
as the successful representative of a movement which had
nothing to do with finance—a movement for the expansion
of the principle of civil and religious liberty. No man
could be more entirely a citizen of this corn muuity. He
was conspicuous in political and social movements of
various kinds. His name was known in charitable organi-
sations; he was active in all the duties that properly belong
to a man of influence and station. For years and years
before he was permitted to sit arid vote in the Howe of
Commons he had been as closely identified with the interests
of this country arid of the City of London as though he had
borne the most typicA English name and had come of &
family whose remotest ancestry, traceable by Heralds'
College, had been established somewhere within the hr ar-
ing of Bow bells. The Rothschild family are associated
in their history with all the great European events of two
or three generations. When a European Government is
making up its mind to some adventurous enterprise,
it does not count the affair as settled until it has heard the
optnion of some representative of the House of Rothschild.
The chiefs of that house are the dtpositaries of the
secrets of Cabinets, as a family do,•bor or a family
lawyer is the depositary of toe confidential explana-
tions that belong to his department. 'I he history of
the house, whenever it conies to he fully writtee,
will contain wore Int•-resting revelations than another col-
lection of Simancas manuscrltts. But it is to the peculiar
credit of the Itorhiichild faruly that they have in'ereited
themselves to the full in all that concerned the civil, poli-
tical, and social prosperity of the country, and made It
their own The ‘ate Baron Rothschild will long be remem-
bared as oee of the moat 140111 citizens the City of London
has ever kncwn.

It will be heard, the Dam Telegraph romerlit with zini!

versa.! regret, that Baron Lionel de Rothschild expired and.
daily at an early hour on Tuesday morning-at his residence
in Piccadilly. The last of four eminent brothers so long
associated in the fortunes of the firm, Baron Lionel
himself represented the most important period of those
vast and prospering activities which have placed the name
of Rothschild at the head of the financial world. Under his
sagacious and experienced government the branch establich-
merits of Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and Frankfort transacted
their common affairs in harmony with the central house in
London, the conjointed association ranking certainly as a
power in Europe, and it might almost be said as a monetary
soVereignty. -1 he de ceased Baron belongs, ho w ever, to history
in a still more direct sense than that flowing from hisvast trans.
actions and financial alliances. Lionel Nathan de Rothschild
via. during his lifetime, and will still be in all men's recoi-
-1 ctions, the embodiment of a signal and salutary victory of
toleration It was in his person that the Legislature of this
country removed from itself the stigma of excluding from
Parliament that peaceful but powerful denomination to
whom as a Christian empire it owed already a large part
of the foundations of its civil and religious system.
There are other aspects in which the life and death of this
distinguished man must be recorded as momentous.
One of them is with regard to the poor and friendless;
for there was no tradition of the great banking house more
sedulously mientained, we believe, by Baron Lionel than
1 that of the princely charity which is everywhere linked
with the firm. Whoever knows Vienna and the many
institutions and establishments of succour and kindly
assistance of which Baron Anselm has been the centre, will
be aware of the deep sense of human duty which has
accompanied and dignified the increasing prosperity of
these lords of finance. To say that Baron Lionel was
"never wearied of well doing" among his fellow citizens of
London andissound his country residences, is merely to
repeat that he was the head of the London branch of
the great fraternal confederation, and, therefore, the chief
director of the generosity as well as of the business trans-
actions of himself and his partners. In the departed Baron
the vor of London have lost a warm friend, who also will
he mia3ed by many a great statesman and prominent public
man.

The Pall Mall Gazette of Wednesday remarks :—" All the
newspapers this morning speak of the Barn Lionel de
Rothschild, whose decease it was our melancholy duty to
rec rd yesterday, in tenni of marked respect and admira-
tion Too often the new,paper p tuegyric in such cases is
forced and excessive: it is not so here. The sadly sob-r
tooe in which these memorial articles are written is itself
evidence that the respect and the admiration they r xpress
are deep arid real. For urae 1 yea we will only say that we
do not find a word too much in the praises bestowed upon one
of the kindliest as well as one of the shrewdest, and, in all
the many affairs in which he. concerned himself, most judi-
cious men of his day. It is these qualities that we
would dwell upon, rather than on the vast in-
fluence which his wealth and his high character
commanded everywhere in Europe. Buoy all his life
and every day of his life with great and delicate trans-
actions, he always had time for courtesies and good works.
To use a somewhat slang expression, he was full of
human nature and neither the long. continued strain of
responsible business, nor the coldness which too often
creeps upon the mind with age, wearied his bene-
volence or chilled the thorough good-nature with
which he was born. In tine, the Baron Lionel de Roths-
child had not only a good head but a good heart; and to the
last the one remained sound and clear, the other warm and
sympathetic. His was a full and useful life : and though it
lasted long, we must all the more regret that it has ended,
since it was still a most useful and beneficent life down to
the last day."