The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-04-06
Extravaganza In Living.

Pitt managed the national finances of
England during period of unexampled
difficulty, yet was himself always
plunged in debt Lord Darlington, ex-
banker, once or twice, at Mr.. Pitts re-
quest, examined his household accounts
and found the quantity of butchers
meat charged in the bills at one hun
dred weight week. The charge for
servants wages. board wages, living
and household bills exceed G2,300 o
year. At Pitts death the nation voted
940, 600 to satisfy the demands of his
creditors yet his income had never
been less then $1,000 year, and at one
time, with the wardenship of the Clinque
Ports, it was nearly $4,000 year more.
Macaulay truly says that "the charac-
ter of Pitt would have stood higher if,
with the disinterestednes of Pericles
and De Witt, he had united their dgni-
fed frugality."
But Pitt by no means stood alone
Lord Melville was as unthrifty in the
management of his own affairs as he was
OF the money of the public. Fox was
an enormous over, his financial maxim
being that a man need never want
money If he was able to pay enough for
1t. Fox called the outer room at Al
mack's, where he borrowed on occasions
from jew lenders at atexorbitant premiums,
his " Jerusalem Chamber" Passion
for play was his great vice, and at very
early age it involved him in debt TO an
enormous amount. 1t is stated by Glib
son that on one occasion Fox sat play-
ing at hazard for twenty hours in sue
cession, losing G14,0 But deep play
was the vice of high life in those DAYS.
and cheating was not unknown. Selwyn,
alluding to Fox's losses at play, called
him Charles the martyr.
Sheridan was the hero of debt. He
lived on it. Though he received large
sums OF money in one way or another,
no one knew what became of it, for he
paid nobody. 1t seemed to melt away
IN his hands like snow in summer. He
spent his first wife's fortune of G16,OOO
IN six weeks jaunt at Bath. Necessity
drove him to literature, and, perhaps, to
the stimulus of poverty we owe "The
Rivals " and the dramas which followed
it. With his second wife he obtained a
fortune of $4,000, and, with gl5,OOO
which he realized by tho sale of Drury
Land shares, he bought an estate in Sur
rey, from which he was driven by debts
and duns.
The remainder of his life was n series
OF shifts, sometimes brilliant, but often
degrading, to raise money and evade
creditors. Taylor, of the opera house,
used to say that if he took off his hat
to Sheridan in the street it would cost
him ESQ; but if he stopped to speak to
MIN it would cost g100. He was in debt
all round-to his milkman, his grocer,
his baker and his butcher. Sometimes
Mrs. Sheridan would be kept waiting for
an hour or more, while the servrnts were
beating up the neighborhood for coffee,
butter, eggs and rolls.
While Sheridan was paymaster of the
navy, butcher one day brought q leg
of mutton to the kitchen. The cook
took it and clapped it in the pot to boil,
and went up stairs for the money, but
not returning, the butcher coolly re-
moved the pot lid, took out the mutton
and walked away with it in his tray
Yet, while living il these straits, Sheri-
dan, when invited with his son into the
country, usually went in chaises and
four-he III one, and his son Tom fol-
lowing in the other. The end of all was
very sad. For some weeks before his
death he was nearly destitute of the
means of subsistence.
His noble and royal friends had entire
ly deserted him. Executions for debt
were in his house, and he passed his
last days in the custody of eheriff's off
GERS, who abstained from carrying him
to prison merely because they were as
sured that to remove him would cause
his immediate death.