Los Angeles herald., 1892-01-09
WEALTH CONTROLLED BY WOMEN.

sixty-six Females Are Worth the Enor-
nous Sum of S37s, 10000
A New York club man, who was once
an assessor of taxes, and who fell into
the habit of finding out how much peo-
pie are worth, has made some curious
figures regarding the fortunes of our
rich women and what they might do
with their money. According to his fig
ures there are forty widows in the coun-
try whose wealth aggregates 1915, ,OOO,-
600; fifteen spinsters, worth $125, 200, 900;
eleven married women who control their
own fortunes, in all $3S, ,000, 900. This
makes total of sixty-six women who
control the enormous sum of $37S, ,00O,-
600.
The club man has the name of every
one of the wealthy ladies, with the
amount attributed to each. Those of
them who are among the rich women
familiar to newspaper readers are not
given as large fortunes in this interest
ing schedule as the newspapers accord
them, and he insists that his estimate in
every case is under rather than above
the actual figures. In many instances
his figures have been obtained by evil
dence produced in court, as in the case
of Miss Blythe, of California, whose for
tune has been SO much exploited through
litigation.
asked this man who, according to
his financial figuring, was the richest
woman in the country. "Hetty Green.
in my judgment" he said, 'is the rich
est woman in America. Mrs. Green is
one of the plainest dressed women in
New York. have never seen her when
] thought her whole outfit was worth
over fifteen dollars, and yet she has
more handsome diamonds than half
the rich danes who make speciality of
fine jewels. But she would scorn to have
them for show. She picks up her dia-
monds simply on investment, and be-
cause she knows they are much better
property than nine-tenths of the securi-
ties that are offered to her in Wall
street.
"It is fact that Hetty Green has a
bag full of diamonds, and yet | doubt
If she ever wore one in her life She has
great deal of contempt for display of
riches in the matter of clothes, but at the
same time she is not the parsimonious
woman that some newspaper reports
make her out. She is sturdy, honest,
conscientious woman, and there is hardly
a charitable organization in New York,
Philadelphia or Chicago that has not dis
bursed large sums in charity for her."
According to my club friend, Lolita is
the richest actress in the United States
She makes less money than Bernhardt,
when Bernhardt strikes popular wave,
but she makes it continuously and does
not squander it. Lolita has great deal
of money invested in western real es-
tate, but her heaviest investments are in
Boston and New York. One of her New
York assets is big fiat house up town.
The richest Unmarried woman in this
city is said to be Miss Julia Rhinelander,
who has inherited the fortunes of half q
dozen rich relatives. She is scheduled
at $15, 900, 900. Miss Rhinelander is an
orphan, but manages to get along right
well in the world for all that. A richer
spinster than Miss Rhinelander will be
Jay Gould's daughter when she comes
into her inheritance, but at present the
former is credited with being the wealth
lest maiden on Manhattan island.
When asked my club friend why he
kept tab, SO to speak, on all the rich
ladies in the country, he grew confden-
tial and said: II have great financial
project-the greatest, I may say, of mod
ern times. 1t will appeal to you. 1t is
to mass all the rich women of the coun-
try together in one grand commercial
concern, combining this capital of $685.
100000 in business enterprises. With
such an aggregation of wealth they could
control the markets Of the world and
revolutionize"-
But this financial phantasma did not
appeal to me. fed from the prospect.
New York Cor. Buffalo Express