Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-06-15
MEN WITH A MANIA.
MAKING COLLECTIONS OF ODD And
CURIOUS THINGS.

Brokers Eager in tho Pursuit of Missals,
Pottery, Roses, Orchids, Japanese
Curios. Pipes, Mesaics and Butterflies.
The True Collector Is Born.
The collecting craze Is something almost as
Inevitable as death to the successful Wall
street man As soon as he begins to feel his
fortune upon an assured basis he is absolutely
sure to fall prey to mania for collecting
something These fancies are as widely diff
ferent as the poles and as numerous as
midnight stars. Brayton Ives spends thou
sands Of dollars every year On books and has
the finest collection Of Illuminated missals in
this country, and the most complete collec-
ton of first printed editions in the world.
Henry Clews has the pottery craze, and his
Royal Saxony, Sevres Worcester and Dres-
den ware are unsurpassed on this side of the
ocean. Alfred Suly raises roses at his coun-
try place and is always searching for a new
variety; for that reason more than any other
he got his affairs in order and went across
the water, where be viii visit all the famous
roseries of France, where most Of the new
varieties Of that flower are produced, and
contemplates also looking through the old
gardens of England for the elder varieties
that can no longer be found in the collections
Of modern florists Jay Gould devotes his
leisure moments to orchids, and his orchid
houses at his place on the Hudson contain the
largest variety of these strange giants in any
collection in the world outside Of the Botani-
cal Garden of London Austin Corbin cares
most for japanese curios and has his house
stored with crystals, swords, pottery, bronzes,
KakamoDo and carved ivories till there is
scarcely room for mere commonplace living
purposes
Rare AND BEAUTIFUL THINGS
One Wall street man has collected pipes
from all over the world. Another has ran
sacked all lands for weapons; third devotes
himself to bringing together wood carvings,
fourth to the collection of Mosaics-and so
ad infinitum. There are lot of spurious ar
ticles palIned Off on some of these unframed
collectors, but on the whole the mania is ad-
mirable If for nothing else than that it re-
suits in filing the country with rare and
beautiful things. One Of the most interesting
and occult Of these collections is that of Nue.
moegen's, which consists entirely of moths
and butterflies 1t contains 100000 Of these
insects ell carefully arranged, ticketed, cata-
logued and displayed in handsome glass
cases. Nuemoegen has been some twelve
years bringing these together, and it Is said
to be the most complete collection of moths
and butterflies In the world. No expense or
pains have been spared, no expedition has
left any Of the large cities for purposes of
exploration In foreign countries that has not
been accompanied by an agent Of Nuemoe-
gems, commissioned to bring home specimens
of the papilio of the land
The collection includes specimens indigen-
GUS tc every country from the equator to the
very limit of their existence northyard and
they vary in color and size all the way from
tiny creatures half the diameter Of ones lit
tie finger nail and OF the purest white up to
wide winged beauties of glowing peacock
blues, with bodies bigger than a humming
bird. They range the whole gamut of color
and present the most curious suggestions Of
imitation such as the pansy butterfly, whose
four wings resemble with startling exactness
the four petals of the purple and golden
heartsease, or those SO like dead leaf as to
be indistinguishable at q little distance.
Others have precisely the same rich scarlet
coloring of autumn foliage, or the hue of the
peacocks breast; the deaths head moth has
distinct skull and crossbones marked on his
back, whole branch of this family of lepi-
doptera ere seeming counterparts of a bed Of
pale purple wood violets Some are white
as snow and others black as velvet, while
most beautiful of all are the great creatures
of pale, milky green, whose wings have long
tails of four or five inches attached Some
are very like dragon flies, with gauzelike
opalescent wings, while some of the big
bodied fellows are covered with actual
feathers of down.
THE TRUE COLLECTOR.
The true collector is born, and is only made
by long experience and much labor These
rich stock brokers indulge in collecting only
as an eiegant advertisement and intelligent
way of getting rid of their superfiuous in
come; they are rarely born with the true
passion The men WIG sell curios take them
In hand and educate them slowly and
laboriously to distinguish between the
true and the false, the artistic and the mere
tricious, and in large part their collections
ore brought together by their having carte
blanche orders with London and Partisan
dealers to buy and ship them anything that
comes up for sale fitted to perfect or adorn
their possessions
But there are two OF three men in New
York Of very moderate means who are true
born collectors. They mouse about old book
and bric-a-brac shops, dive suddenly into
junk cellars on Avenue A and come up ra-
diant and grimy with some dingy object
which, when put in order, causes their friends
to crever with envy Their manner. too, in
purchasing is worth study: Whenever they
happen across something specially desirable
they begin gradually to exhibit more and more
profound disgust and scorn- They contempt
uously toss the treasure trove aside and ex-
anime everything else before they return to
it, finally selecting some cheap, worthless
object and suggesting that the find shall be
thrown In as an inducement to purchase, and
YEARLY pocket the whole as il after all they
felt they were very weak to allow themselves
TO bs persuaded to take it at all have seen
this performance tried successfully more
than once.-Brooklyn Eagla