The Abbeville messenger. (Abbeville, S.C.) 1884-1887, 1886-02-02
RICHEST OF WOMEN.
CHE HAS MILLIONS ON MILLIONS.
"'''s Wondrous History of Mime. Cousino
Of Suntingo. Chill.

WOMAN, DOnna lSaQOTa COuSlnO, OF Sun-
tiago, Chill, and there are few men or
women in the world richer than she.
There is no end to her money and no
limit to her extravaganza, and people
call her the Countess of Monte Cristo.
While her husband lived he was con-
sidered the richest man in Chill and she
the richest woman, for their property
was kept separate, the husband manag-
ing his estates and tho wife her own
and people say she was altogether the
better administrator of the two. He
left his property to her, and the two
estates were united.
From the coal mines alone Sonora
Cousino has an income of $50, 600 q
month. 1 do not believe there are any
mines in the world which pay so large a
profit upon the capital invested and the
labor expended. They lie at the extreme
southern limit of the populated district
of Chill, just above where the archipel-
ago hat you will notice on the map
begins. Talcahuano is the nearest port
of Importance, but the towns ut the
mines are Lota and Coronel. The coast
is quite abrupt here, and the mines are
entered by shafts that are Immediately
over the water of Lota Bay, so that the
coal is drawn on trucks to the mouth of
the mines and dumped into launches
and lighters which are towed out to the
anchorage of ships. 1t is said that it
costs only $1.35 4 ton to mine and de
liver this coal on shipboard, and she
Will not sell an ounce of it at :. price
less than $3.50 n ton, just a shade lower
than the cost of imported Cardiff. AS
the deposit is ~inexhaustiblc. and the
widow has a monopoly, it will be sur
missed that this portion of her property
will yield enough evcnue to keep the
wolf from the door.
She has a feet of eight iron steam
ships, of capacities varying from 9, 900
to 5000 tons, built in England, and
used to carry the coal up the coast as
far as Panama, and around the Straits
of Magellan to Buenos Ayres and Monte
video. At Lota she has copper and sill
yer smelling works, besides the coal
mines, and her coaling ships bring ore
down the>coast rs q return cargo from
upper Chill, Peru, and Ecuador, while
those that 60 to Buenos Ayres bring
back beef and flour and merchandise
for the consumption of her people.
Nine. Cousino owns every house in the
town of Lota, and every one of its six
or seven thousand inhabitants is de-
pendent upon her for support. In Cor
onel her proprietorship is not quite so
complete, but nine. tcnths of the people,
and there are s, 5000 there, are on her
pay rolls. She has brick kilns and pot
teries, as we'll as smeltcrs, and makes
all the tiles and e~arthenware used on
the west coast. 1t Is said that she pays
out from 500, 600 to $3.50, 900 n month
as wages in these two towns, most of
which comes back into her pocket
through the supply stores, where she
sells food and clothing to her own peo-
pie.
Although Lota is only a mining town,
as dirty and smoky as any of its coun-
terparts in Pennsylvania, it is the
widows favor;te place of residen nee,
and she is now building a mansion that
will cost q million dollars at least. The
architect and chief builder are French
men whom she imported from Paris,
and much of the material is imported
also. Not long ago she shipped a cargo
of hides and wool in one of her wi
steamers to Bordeaux, and it is to come
back laden with building supplies for
this mansion. She has no time to 90
across the sea herself, and the captain
of her ship will bring with him dccora-
tors and designers, and upholstery men,
who are to take q look at things and
finish the interior for her occupation re-
CARELESS of expense.
This mansion stands in the centre of
what IS undoubtedly the finest private
park in the world, including $50 acres
of land, laid out in the most elaborate
manner, filled with statuary, fountains,
grottos, caves. cascades, and no end of
beautiful trees and plants. The i'm
Provement of the natural beauty of the
place is said to have cost Sonora Cou-
sino nearly a million dollars, and she
has a force of thirty gardeners con-
stantly at work. The superintendent
is a ~Scotchman, and he told me
his orders were to make the
place paradise, without re-
gard to cost. In this park there are
many wild animals and domesticated
pets. not only natives of the country,
but imported from other lands, and the
flowers are wonderful.
Her ability as a manager is remark
ablc. and she directs every detail, re.
ceiving weekly reports from the ten or
twelve superintendent who have imme-
diato charge of her affairs. While she
is generous to profigacy, she requires a
strict account of every dollar earned or
spent upon her vast estates, and is very
sharp at driving a bargain. One OF her
Scotch superintendent told me that
there was no use in any one trying to
get ahead of the Madam.
you cannot move a stone or a stick
bit She knows it," he said.
In addition to her landed property
and her mines, she owns much city real
estate, the rental of which brings her
s.veral hundred thousand dollars a year,
and she is the principal stakeholder in
the largest bank in Santiago. Not long
sgo she presented a park of a hundred
acres to the people of that CITY and a