, 1881-12-07

of insecurity. The late King of the Bel
glans left a fortune worthy of a Jew fnan-
cier; our own Queen has grown wealthy
on the Throne; the Sultan, according to
Mr.. W.. Blunt, has a heavy secret purse
in England the King of Italy is an exact
economist and the Emperor of Austria is,
1t is said, never in debt. Still, this gene
ration remembers the Emperor Nicholas,
who spent W millions a year on the I'M
perial household the Sultan Abdul Aziz,
who for many years made away with six
millions King Victor Emanuel, who, with
eight or nine royal incomes and estates,
never had a penny the Emperor Napoleon
Ill, who trittered away a million a year,
with little but rather vulgar festivals to
show for it and the King of the Neither
lands, who scattered in his early youth a
fortune " beyond the dreams of avarice,"
popularity estimated at G12, 000, 900 ster-
ling, and probably exceeding half that
amount. 1t is not fifteen years since a
weeks visit to COmpiegne cost each lady
G500-twenty-one dresses at least being
de rigueW-Since it was impossible for a
French cOurtier'S wife to spend less than
81 900 a year on her dress, and since a
lady contested before the courts of Paris
a bill for 915, 600 for dressing her for three
years. She had paid, says the Quarterly,
El2, 600 into court. The carefully guarded
privacy of modern life, too, c~onccals cnor-
nous Ell mixtures. We make very much
of CraSsIS'S brides, but Lord Hardwood
spent G120,000 in one Yorkshire election
950,0 600 have been given for a great bo-
rough; and the House Of Commons eXpendS
two millions every time it is dissolved.
We read aghast of NerO'S horses Sh0d
with cold, and of Il Spanish Niceroy driv-
ing into Lima with eight mules all shod
with silver but a firSt-claSS racing stable
in this country costs 100000 a year, q
. liboral' stable for a great country house
has been known TO cost $4,000 annually,
The late Lord Mayo's wine bill as Niceroy
OF India exceeded that sum, and any man
familiar with COWeS will point ont steam
yachts which for every month they are
atl0at cost E1,J00. There are m&ny men
il England who spend G1GO,00G a year
practically on themselves and their tami-
lies, and ii We were to include purchases,
as the writer in Che Quarterly does, among
probabilities, we suspect the ancient world
would be outdone The wife of Caligula
owned jewels " valued" very vaguely, at
Gi0,G00, but d recent English Warehouses
il said to have attended Court worth
G100,0 600 " as she stood - and French
jewellers talk Of the wife of an American
millionaire as possessed Of half-a-millitn
in diamonds. The Duke of Brunswick had
more. Those purchases, however, unless
fOolishly made, are rather bad investments
than true prodigalitics, the stones fairly
representing the money given for them
while for aught We know, Lolita Paulina's
emcralds may have increased three per
cent. per annum in value, as Mrs. IS
diamonds were doing before the diSc0ve-
rieS at the Cape. The Quarterly thinks it
mOnStrOuS that FOuquet, Louis AlN's
lntendant, should have spent 9360,000 on
his house, but what has Eaton Abbey cost
from first to last ? while there are houses
in London the bare walls of which are put
up to auction for more than the G1l2,O00,
which Louis XIV. spent on Madame de
MOnteSpan'S chateau. The magniticence
of the Farmers General may have mount
ed to faulty, but if $4,000 has been paid
in our time for the flowers of a London
ballroom, Bouquets outlay Of $4,000 on
a banquet is not a proof of it nor could
Condos debts of G320,000 compare with
some of those which the late Mr.. Padwick
used to show his skill in clearing off. One
English mobiles son recently went into
Court to be cleared of a heavier debt
incurred in two years, of course chiefly
in backing his friends "paper." Still
no doubt, there is a change of tone, not,
we fear, so much through increase of vir-
tue, as through the diffusion of ordinary
intelligence. There are few mobiles nova
days who do not know their incomes, like
the last Richelieu, the Esterhazy of 1885,
and, as we have been told on excellent
authority, the late Prince Schwartzenberg,