The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1883-06-22
Mammoth MilIionaires.

Those VINO watch the new mammoth
millionaireS now coming forward in
such numbers from America and Aus
tralia say that one definite reason for
dreading them is their incapacity for
spending their fortunes in amusing
themselves. A man who has made
twenty millions sterling, say by vast
corners in railway shares, finds that,
unless he goes on making money or is
one of those fortunate persons who can
continuously devote themselves to an
object, the excess to which his fortune
transcends that of other rich men is of
very little use to him. He can, of
course, get out of it all the personal
luxury, in the way of fine houses and
good eating. and purple and fine linen
generally, that he may happen to wish
for, but in those things there is Tor him
no special satisfaction. Anybody with,
say, 100000 year, or other bread
and-butter fortune of that kind, can
buy all the personal luxury he can en-
JOY, including in some places social
Difference, and the mammoth million
aire wants something more. He wants
to feel the value of the difference be-
tween his resources and those of the
merely rich, to do or enjoy something
which they cannot attempt Elephan-
tine amusements may be amusing, but
they are only elephantine, and he is a
mammoth, wants larger trees to crush
through, bigger forests to browse in,
a deeper swamp in which to gam
Dol and roll. In little planet like
ours this is not easy to obtain. He
desires like the rest of us, to utilize his
special advantage, which is the COM
mand of the modern form of the wish
ing cap in degree to which no one
else can pretend, and it is difficult to
wish for anything that nobody with a
smaller cap can get. He can travel
about if he likes, travel very pleasantly;
but so can the ordinarily wealthy man,
money beyond certain amount adding
little either to the enjoyment or the
conveniences of travel The present
writer was travelling once on the track
of an Empress, and was so inconven-
fenced by her wealth that he watched
to see what it gave her. 1t was very
little, indeed, nothing compared with
what she obtained from her European
rank. When crossing the Alps she
swept up for two days in advance every
available horse, engaging at one point
no less than eighty; but she could only
sit in one place in one barouche, and
moved, on the whole, no quicker than
other people. The huge suit seemed to
be merely burden, choking up the
roads, calling forth tiresome crowds,
and sometimes creating wearisome de-
lays. There was a physician, for in
stance, who actually fell i'll, to the loss
of eleven hours. The Empress upset
the travelling arrangements of great
line for three days by her requirements
in the waY of special train and extra
precautions; but any one rich enough
to hire saloon-carriage for himself.
and pay for pilot engine in front would
have travelled with just as much per-
sonal enjoyment. The Empress rank,
no doubt, helped her greatly in opening
inaccessible castles, attracting experts
Naples paradise to efN V9 IN R %cR hea is
money would have purchased; but the
command of millions of itself produced
no more than thousands would have
done.
AS to creating grand place-the
idea which Edgar Poe puts into the head
of his imaginary millionaire-it is to be
done, no doubt, with skill and judg-
ment; but when the colossal once enters
into an enterprise of the kind it becomes
unenioyable. No private man would
be happier even in his own thoughts for
creating Versailles, and short of Yer
sailles, half millions well laid out will
do all that is required, To ''found a
family" in the English sense, is in
America or Australia impossible; and
great estate gives comparative little in
| f1uence, and beyond a certain limit
quite attainable by any rich man, no
particular pleasure. What is the use
of owning square miles when nobody
will "cap" to you, or vote for you, or
recognize your greatness in any way
that is not half hostile? Of course, if the
| mammoth millionaire is a collector, he
| can make mammoth collection; but
when once you have acquired all the
snuf-boxes, or jade bowls, or fine cat $
eyes to be procured, thousand more
| specimens add very little to your graft
fication. A collection loses its charms
when once it is magnifed into a
museum. Besides, all these things cost
comparatively little. They can, any
one of them, be done to any reasonable
extent by a man with a hundred thou
sand year; and we are talking of the
millionaires, to whom that income seems
respectable poverty. The true mann
moth Croesus is forced to accumulate
by the difficulty of getting rid of his
money, and soon finds that really to
use 1t with visible result adequate to
the power expended, there is no way
except to increase his business opera
tons. That is the reason why, in
America, he continues his trade; and
why his son, with still greater wealth,
will be tempted to continue after him,
and to keep on rolling up the SNOWFALL
till smaller men declare as they are de-
claring now about the railway kings,
| that itS h11lx is becomino dan perOuS.-