Bradford opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1874-1881, 1876-04-08
Extravaganza In Living.

Pitt managed tho national finances O
England during q period OF unexample,
difficulty, yet was himself Away
plunged in debt. Lord Darlington, ex
banker, once or twice, at Mr.. Pitts re
quest, examined his household account
and found the quantity Of butchers
meat charged in the bills at ono hun
dred weight o week. The charge 10
servants wages, board wages, livinl
and household bills exceed E2,800
year. At Pitts death the nation votet
E40, 900 to satisfy the demands Of hi
creditors yet his income had neve
been less then f6, 900 year, and OF ON,
time, with the wardenship of the Olinqu'
Ports, il was nearly "a, 900 year more
Macaulsy truly says TINT "the oharac
ter OF Pitt would have stood higher II
with the disinterestedness of Periclel
and De Witt, he had united their digni
fed frugality." bd
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 p0blic. Fox was
an enormous over, his financial maxim
being that man need never want
money if he was able to pay enough for
it. Fox called the outer room at Al
lmack's, where he borrowed on occasions
from Jew lenders at exorbitant premiums,
his Jerusalern Chamber" Passion
for play was his great vice, and at very
early age IL involved him in debt to an
enormous amount. It is stated by Glib
son that on one occasion Fox sat play
ing at hazard for twenty hours in sue
cession, losing f14,OO0. But deep play
was the vice Of high life in those days,
and cheating was not unknown, Selwyn,
alluding to Fox's losses Mt play, called
him Charles the martyr. .'F ''
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. It seemed to melt away
in his hands like snow in summer. He
spent his first wife's fortune of e16,0OO
in a six weeks jaunt at Bath. Necessity
drove him to literature, and, perhaps, to
the stimulus of poverty we owe "The
Rivals " and tho dramas which followed
it. With his seoJnd, wife he. obtained a
fortune Of 5000, and, with el5,00O
which he realizet by the sale of Drury
Land shares, he bought an estate in Sur
rey, from which he was driven by debts
and duns. yH DO -..,. H'"
The remainder Of his life was series
of shifts, sometimes brilliant, but often
to raise money and evade
creditors. Taylor, of the opera house,
used to say that if he took off his hat
10 Sheridan in the street it would cost
him ESQ; but if he stopped to speak to
him it would cost 910O. He was in debt
all round-to his milkman, his grocer,
his baker and his butcher. Sometimes
Mrs. Sheridan would be kept waiting for
IN hour or more, while the servrnts were
beating up the neighborhood for coffee,
butter, eggs and rolls.
While Sheridan was paymaster of the
navy, a butcher one day brought 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
md walked away with it in his tray.
Yet, while living in these straits, Sheri
Ian, when invited with his son into the
country, usually went in chaises and
'our+-he in one, and his son Tom fol-
owing in the other. Thesond of all was
very sad. For some weeks before his
leath he was nearly destitute of The
means Of subsistence. 3D.. 81
His noble and royal friends had entire
Y deserted him. Executions for debt
we're in his house, and he passed his
asst days in the custody of sheriff's Off
,ers, who abstained from carrying him
o prison merely because they were as
ured that to remove him would cause
lis immediate death. r