The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-03-15


was absolutely beautiful in her sim
plicitv and as refreshing in appearance
as a dewdrop in rose. Like pretty
nuch ali men who attain power in the /
Central end South American states, Gen.
Juste Rufino de Barrios was first
class scoundrel and robber. From
the time that he attained the presi-
dency of Guatemala until he was
very properly and justly killed
in battle in 1885, he accumulated
wealth with enormous rapidity. It
seems almost incredible that in space
of less than ten years he should have
stolen from the miserable, half-nalzed
and half-starved people of Guatemala
a fortune estimated at 100000 or
SIS, 900, 900! His widow is now credited
with the possession of S5,000,000. Every
dollar of this money was gained as dis
honestly as that which Morgan the
buccaneer accumulated in the Antilles.
Like all official thieves in the republics
to the south of us, De Barrios had
shipped his ill-gotten wealth out of the
country and would have undoubtedly
soon followed it had it not been for the
cutting short of his career. One of the
humors of the last campaign in this
city was the publication of list of
names of wealthy and influential wom-
EN- who were opposed to the profit
gate and corrupt Tammany hall
government. This document was
gotten out by the mugwunp sup
porters of Mr.. Scott for mayor. Promi-
nent among the names of the ladies
pleading for honest and refined govern
ment was Nine. de Barrios. The prob
abilities are that the little woman
signed the petition with that Thought
lessness with which most people attach
their names to public documents, but
the comment at the time was that it
would be a pretty difficult matter to es-
tablish a form of government in this
city which would compare with the one
that Gen. de Barrios manipulated in
Guatemala and which resulted in his
creation of personal fortune far be-
yond the dreams Of the most avaricious
Tammany sacnem. Of course the Rho
da de Barrios wedding will be a gor-
geous function, and unless McAllister
can secure an engagement in connection
with it in some capacity it is likely that
he will be cast in eclipse.
Decadence of the Rich Widow.
The marriage of Mrs. Marshal o.
Roberts and Nine. de Barrios removes
within a very short period two promi-
nent names from the list of rich widows
of the country. At the same time,
there are many of them left. A gen.
tleman who makes a study of widows,
as it were, informs me that he can
name SO widows whose combined for
tunes represent more wealth thaa
that of any 3S men in the United
States, barring the Astors, Roclefellers,
Vanderbilts, Jay Gould, John W. Maclky,
Senator Stanford and Mr.. Carnegie.
| The lump sum of the value of the coun-
try's widows is, of course, measurably
increased by the widows in the Aston
and Vanderbilt families. Like Sallie
Hargous that was, and a few other peo-
pie prominent in society, some of the
very rich ladies of New York and else
where have been so much exploited in
the newspapers that the public has
grown slightly blase on the subject.
We are falling upon sad times when the
mention Of ten-millionairess creates
no more of thrill than the news that
member of congress has come to
town. And yet such is the melancholy
fact. Take the reporters old standby,
Mrs. Hetty Green. She is worth $40,-
O0O, 900, or if she isn't, she has been told
so often that she is that she believes it
herself She has been written up
hundred times and the last reporter to
write her up does not scale down her
fortune single dollar. So there it
stands, like an unhinching and financial
Gibraltar, at $40, ooo,0 The tax man
might tell different story; but that is
neither here nor there. In fact any
slight discrepancy between the report
| err and the tax man in matters of
| that kind is not for us to pryinto.
Mrs. Paran-Stevens is another wealthy
widow whom age cannot wither nor
many write-ups stale. Her fortune is
usually placed, for convenience in
writing, at s5,ooo,o0o. understand,
however, that Mrs. Stevens would sell
out at less figure even if she lost
money by it. 1t isn't matter of much
consequence, but the late Mr.. Stevens
left his wife, by will, the use of his
New York and Newport houses, $780,
600 in cash to be paid as soon as posi-
BILE after his death, and a trust fund of
81, 600, 900. Recent litigation before
Judge Ihgraham developed that these
requests had been paid, with the ex-
ception of a balance Of $265,OOo of the
trust fund, and that Mrs. Stevens was
indebted to the estate to the amount
OF SS5, GIL. Still, Mrs. Stevens is a very
rich woman, and the impression is that
she is shrewd enough to keep right on
getting richer. There is quite a long
list of these excessively rich widows.
but the public has had such a surfeit of
the subject that it has not only ceased
to be thrilling, but procession OF rich
widows on Broadway would create
scarcely more interest than a passing
street car. 1t goes to show that the
public will in time tire of it's choicest
blessings.