The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1886-09-01
new YORK MILLIONAIRES
MISTAKEN NOTIONS ABOUT HOW
THEY USE THEIR
Great Wealth and Spend Their Time
Tho Busiest Men In the
Metropolis.

New York correspondence of the
st. Louis Republican: The popular
notion about millionaires represents
them as sybarites who used their
great wealth to indulge themselves
in luxury and ease. This notion
may be correct in some cases, but il
certainly is wrong when applied to
New York men OF money. They are
among the busiest men we have in
the community. Almost all of them
have made their own fortunes, and
their terrible struggle in the arena
of commerce has left them grim
and hardened gladiators, whose only
pastime is grinding labor. They
do not retire when they have made
great fortunes, because they must
have occupation to keep them in
good health and spirits. They love
their work and do plenty of it, and
o do it we'll is the greatest pleasure
they know. This, Of course, cuts
them off from the enjoyment of travel
and many amusements which ether
men love, but love Of work seems to
compensate for everything else.
Charles A. Dana said recently,
apropos of the eight hour movement,
that the trouble with men who love
work is that they find sixteen hours q
day too short for them, and would
like to steal from the hours devoted
to sleep. The man who did not like
work, he continued, was greatly to
be pitied. Mr.. Dana himself is
quite old enough to retire to his
palace on Long Island and live
among its books and art treasures,
but he would shoot any man who Sc
riously suggested that he should dc
SO. His heart is wrapped in the
paper which he has created and
maintained as much by hard work
as by superior intellect.
Walking down Broadway almost
any day in the week .the tall erect
figure of Cyrus Field may be seen.
His hair and beard are white as
snow, and more than so years
have passed since he saw the light
on his fathers little farm, but his
eye is as bright and his step as light
as they were fifty years ago. In spite
of his years he performs work which
the very quickest and cleverest
of Wall streets young men might
be pardoned for considering ex-
cessive. He dictates every
day many thousands of words in an
swering letters and sending mes
sages, attends half a dozen meetings
of companies in which he is inter
ested, visits banks, studies out new
projects and attends to the affairs of
old ones with lightning rapidity.
Mr.. David Dudley Field, who has
also passed tourscore years, attends
to his great legal practice most dill
gently and at the same time works
on his great undertaking of
codifyiug all the laws of
New York State, task which al
most all lawyers agreed at first was
too herculean for humanity. He has
seen the penal code win its way to
recognition and adoption, and he now
sees the civil code in fair way to the
same success. In these great works
he leaves his own monument as sure
ly as does Cyrus w. Field in the first
Atlantic cable, but he cannot yet
throw off the harness.
Austin Corbin is another of our
restless, constantly toiling million
aires. Every body in New York and
Brooklyn knows him as a banker,
and as the owner of half dozen
railroads and several of the largest
and finest seaside resorts on the
Atlantic coast. He has made his
way up from poverty to 5000, 00C
and is now 20 years of age. | have
often been in his office and the hard
work he did made a very deer
impression on me. / put the same
question to him as / had to the
others. "You have got more money
than you can possibly spend. Why
don't you stop and enjoy yourselt2'
"If you offered me $4,000 to go away
on pleasure trip and offered to have
me carried in the most comfortable
and rapid manner to see the most in
teresting sights in the world | would
not 60. l get my enjoyment attend
ing to my business. 1t is a great
machine, and | like to hold the lever
that controls it. OF course have
to do a vast amount of work to keep
myself thoroughly familiar with the
details of my business, but | like it.
What would this country come to if
all the men who projected great en-
terprises dropped their control as
soon as they made fortunes?"
A gentleman who visited Mr..
Corbin'S beautiful residence on Long
Island was astonished to find Mr..
Corbin at his bedside at sunrise
about 8 o slock-urging him to come
and take walk. They walked sew
eral miles before breakfast, and the
visitor found that this was regular
habit with his host.
State Fish Commissioner Eugene
G. BlackfOrd, a treble millionaire,
leaves his mansion on one of Brook
lyn's most beautiful avenues at 3
o clock in the morning very FREE
quently and hurries to his corridor
in Fulton market.
There he dons an old suit of
clothes which most common fisher
men would despise, and from that
time until 10 o'clock he is buster than
any Of his men. No work is beneath
him, and when 10 o'clock comes he
is fish scales from head to foot. At
the hour named he takes bath, puts
On his business suit again, and, after
4 hurried breakfast, rushes off on
some mission connected with his
,ommissionership. This may take
him all the afternoon or it
nay only take him an hour.
Il the latter he finds plenty Of mat
,ers connected with his business on
which to employ his time until 6
o'clock comes, when he rushes over
o his home. swa lows his supper as
asst as he can and rushes out again
% present at q church meeting,
where he does a days work attend
M To the c0nprepation'a huRineaa