The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1873-08-07

How Two Financial Giants Lives

Commodore Vandefbiit's breakfast,
writes u correspondent, would do for an
anchorite-a cup of coffee, plain toast,
and the white of an egg. His dinners
are equally frugal. He takes thB bir
every day, rain or ehihe. He keeps no
late hours. Company or no company,
he moves off to bed at ten. He prefers
the society of few friends to hot
soiree. The simple Moravian airs of
his boyhood, played by his accomplished
him than the crash and fury of the
opera. In his business he is cool, col
lected, and self-reliant. The fume,
fretting, and wasting Of exciting bust
ness is done by others. and not by him
self. He never sells what he does not
own, nor buys what he can not pay for
and, if he will, lock up. He reads men
with the intuition of prophet. He
locks his business affairs in his own
bosom, and, he says, "changes his
mind when he chooses without being
accused of vacillation." He touches
nothing that he does not control. He is
at nobody's mercy; nobody can betray
him, sell him out, buy him off, or in
any way thwart his plans. At the fu-
neral of Horace F. Clark was Moses
Taylor. He is over sixty, one of the
Understanding men in New York next
to Stewart, Astor, Vanderbilt, doing
more business than eny other man in
the city. He is rugged, hearty, full of
the vigor of youth, and seems good for
a quarter of century of rough, tough
toll. He runs one of the largest banks
of the city. He is more than President
he is autocrat of the concern. He has
been for years his own book-keeper,
and should anything happen to the
books of his business downtown, he
could duplicate them from under his
own hand. He has kept record of his
business since he was O boy, and can
show you the profit and loss, day by
day, for fifty years. His style of busi-
ness has preserved his health and per-
petuated his fortune. His great point
has been to make money. Horses, fast
living, eating and drinking, hot liquors,
yachting, ocean and mountain travel
ing, seven by nine rooms at fashionable
no charms for him. Mr.. Taylor takes
his recreation in this wise: He rises
early takes a bath /; eats q simple
breakfast, and is down TO the bank be-
fore the clerks. He is never excited,
never in hurry is self-possessed and
master of the situation. Business over,
most men find recreation in a quiet
game of billiards in dash over the
waves at Sandy Hook little speed
over the road, where the rivalry is suffi-
cient to make the bottom of horse
worth gold. Not so Mr.. Taylor. The
man who has made twenty dollars in
Wall street spends half of it for coach
to ride up town, and dinner at Del
monico's. Mr.. Taylor, worth $40,
900, rides up town in an omnibus, takes
a frugal dinner-takes bath-goes to
bed and has refreshing sleep-gets up
writes down the business of the day
until ten, and then goes to bed. A man
who wants to see Moses Taylor in the
evening won't look for him in the con-
cert hall, theatre, OF club-room. He will
find him in his own room, second story,
front, pleasantly and cheerfully at work
till bedtime. The prevailing style of
business is entirely unlike these speci-
mems. The young business men on the
street copy Jim Fisk, Horace F. Clark,
and men of that stamp. They are pre-
maturely old. Boys Of thirty are older
than their fathers at sixty. Breakfast
at eleven-heated lunches, with abun-
dance of drink-rushing into wild spec
ulations. This takes the hair off of the
top of their heads-knocks their under
pinning out-gives our boys incipient
paralysis, and makes them walk round
the streets with canes. 81 can't sleep
nights; l get very little sleep after u
o'clock 1 get up at three to get bath,
and read and lay round"