Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1882-09-14
What Becomes Of Old Men in New
York.

1 u.
The gold-hunting that forms the passion
of most men in the metropolis is not dimmet
by age, except in instances where man has
the resolution to stop when he has got
enough, and the decision of character tt
spend his declining days in quiet enjoyment
1t is often said that avarice is the strongest
passion, and survives all the rest. In the
haunts of business one is struck by the num-
Der Of aged and infirm men who are in pur-
suit of more wealth with more acerbity of
spirit than the younger men about them
Their orbit of life is the size of a dollar
They move about in it day by day until a
law of nature carries them out into boundless
space and darkness. There is no spectacle
of beautiful old age to be seen in this city
The babies on the avenues in the morning
or IN the park, attract the eye. The youth
at play get glance; the strong young men
and graceful young women engage the at
tentiGn, and the great tide of humanity on
its ebb and flow to and from business fills
the picture, but there is no repose and serene
cOntentment to be seen among the aged. The
old Romans used to kill the old men. In
modern Gotham the the practical result is
not much different. The old men are
laughed out of clubs; they are slowed away
mansions of their sons and daughters they
are often put into some home for the aged,
where they will not trouble their relatives,
or they are declared insane to prevent their
consumption of their own property, or their
making will in resentment for neglect 1t
is certainly misfortune to be old in New
York, and to be physically dependent upon
others.
1t therefore turns out to be sort of self
protection to keep in business until the click
of the reaper's scythe. The mind grows by
what it feeds upon, and it is remarkable
what thirst for gold marks the lives of the
aged men. You will not see them by the
sea or in the parks at rest, and those you see
at Saratoga are of the richest type, with
equity limbs, but with firm mental grasp
upon their estates. A physician of much
practice among the aged says that he finds
that most millionaires in their last days are
haunted by the fear of dying poor A mil
lionaire committed suicide not long ago in
this city. The fact was hushed up and was
kept out of the newspapers in its true light.
He had given up business had started upon
life of ease and retirement, had over $780,
900 in government bonds and was in posi-
tiOn to be of use to his fellow men. His
mind had been contracted too long to ex
pand, and he begun after short time to cut
down his household expenses, and refused to
eat steak because he could not, he said, afford
it. The reduction of interest to four per
cent on government bonds, he contended,
robbed him of third of his property in one
year, and in two years more all of it would
be gone, and he would die in the poor house.
No argument could change him, and at
length he took Paris green, and when the
physician arrived he exclaimed with an oath
and laugh: Il have got three hours the
start of you; told you that was not going
to die poor man"' Another rich man who
recently died, practically starved himself to
death, and he did not have money enough in !!
the house to buy Grape for the door bell; yet
be had $4,000 in cash idle in bank, and
mis- sons are now fighting over his property.
The impetus given to the passion for money
getting in New York is so strong that man
either pursues the purpose until he gets upon
lis deathbed, or shrivels up in mind and
pirit to be miser as soon as he ceases to
lave something to do. The number of aged
men who are devoting the last years of their
o making life easier for others is very small
n this busy city.