Grand Rapids morning telegram., 1885-01-05
A MlLLIONAIRESS.
Worth Forty Times One Million
Dollars.
The wsff street oaeen Who Does Not
Fear Gould or yassd.rbilt-said 10
he the stingiesf OF Her SEX
striking Peeuiiarities.


fCOF. n 7 Times
A deal OF Misrepresentation gets into
print about a woman whose Wall street
connections have made her conspicuous,
who Is credited with available funds To the
agreeable amount Of S40,O00,0 900, who has
made her husband-Once a comparatively
poor mana power in financial circles, and
who, Il Is asserted, on two occasions
rescued keene and once Jay Gould from
impending disaster. She is known by a
Wall-street sOubriquet. In an out t-of- town
paper not long ago read story assuming
10 inlpart a vast deal OF information about
her. La a rOllicking, poetic way there
We're fragrant tributes TO the lavish attire
OF the Queen" aud descriptions of fash
iOnable dry goods which would have
painted the court OF ancient Sheba in the
deepest sort OF an emerald jealousy. This
~as all the vcriest humbag. The fact Is
that the Queen" of Wall street, for there
Is such parsonage, wears clothes that
might give an upward turn 20 the nose OF
the pie woman round your corner. 1t has
been my privilege to get little closer view
perhaps OF her domestic relations thar
most people have enjoyed. | congratulate
my sex that the stingiest being created
may not after all be man. A fortune
OF million or SO inherited from
an old New Englander of whaling
renown was the capital that a
shrewd woman took into Wall street Her
ventures were bold aud invariably she
won. The biggest men in the market were
glad 70 secure her an ally. She had the
best of all recommendations fat bank
account. To magnates she was able to
dictate terms. Jay Gould's scheme was
her scheme. She rislxed nothing upon the
rise and fall of figures manipulated by
other fingers. She could do her own ma
nipulating, and she did. ''Sure thingsv
were what she wanted and what she got.
The Wall street instinct of pushing for
ward with buzz-saw breastworks never
animated any operator" more relentless
ly. Let those who didn't want torn fingers
stand aside. The buzz-saw kept going.
This was not world for gushing, but for
business. And lots of people discovered
that the motto meant all that it seemed
Profits piled on profits, till now those who
claim to have means of knowledge, esti-
mate her wealth at two-score millions
But shrewdness in big affairs developed in
to a mania which bred a stinginess not
short of meanness in little things. So al
together remarkable are some of the stories
told of this forty times millionairess that /
have been almost afraid to write them.
Renders might smile out their doubts,
though my authorities are persons whose
truthfulness | never heard anybody
question:; and there can be no
Hnffl.f of foAk
chance, ii anybody has, to know what they
talk about. Here is a trio of characteristic
stories: Her child was suffering from dis
ease which threatened lasting lameness
and perhaps death. She sought doctor
whose name is familiar TO every reader of
the New York Times, and the boy was
treated and placed in fair way to re-
covery. One day Wall street man drop
ped into the physicians office as mother
and child went out. The doctor was in
clined to chat. The sad case OF the couple
just departing had worked him into a sem
tImental mood. A poor woman, a suffer-
ing child, had so appealed to his sympa-
thies that rich patients had been obliged to
wait while he wrought out relief for these
who had not the withal to pay.
"YOu can't imagine" he said. show
much good it really does callous old fell
low to meet case like that. Zounds, man,
feel twenty years younger for being able
to do this one act of charity, and the poor
woman was so
Poor woman" calculated the new call
er. Charity be hangedl That woman
has simply been playing with you as she
plays with every body else on this hemis-
phere. She's the richest woman in Amer
lea"
The doctor got his twenty years right
back. Here is more economy from the
same source. A little light-h haired daugh-
ter was promised Sunday hat" 1t was
an ancient sunbonnet when she got it, and
around the inner rim was sewn a long line
of dangling black curls for ornamentation.
The contrast between the child's natural
blonde tresses and this unique trimming
might not have commended itself to the
supercritical artist, but there was this in
its favor-the curls had been in the family
for n couple of generations or So It shall
never be urged. however, against my hero
ine-this choice product of advanced wom-
anhOod in the nineteenth centurv-that she
stinted her offspring TO seek luxuries for
herself. Her self-sacrifces stand out
boldly. A country-house comes into her
possession. IL Is decided to cut off city ex-
penses by a summer residence there. The
mornings are chilly. The family owns a
Ratchet. Goodbye to the front door steps
and the miniature piazza SO was nom
productive ornamentatiOn frowned down
lpon. So was saved bill for kindling- |
wood. And this woman has SiO,0O0.OO0 |
She is not the figure of French romance. /
She tells the time by old Trinity's clock on I
six days of every week throughout the 1
year.