The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-10-13

had said to NIeigs: Who is that gentle
man at table there. L don't know.
ply. No better wines were in France than
were on Meig's table. His cigars were
made especially for him in Cuba. Meigs
told me personally that they cost him %
Gems apiece After dinner on one OceG-
sion We retired TO the fiat roof, which IN
those countries is used by the better class
TO take the evening air. On this roof he
had the best billiard table TO be obtained
for money. Here he served his guests with
cigars wrapped IN gold foil, exactly as
the Emperor Napoleon had his made.
Meigs said they were his special brand.
When daughter Of the President or
Peru was married Meig's present was a
circlet of diamonds that cost $4,000.
AS have said. Meigs was not an engi-
neer. In what did his great ability con-
sist? In my opinion in his marvellous abil-
lty as nnancter- He was paid, OF course,
IN national bonds, and he personally placed
those bonds in England and France on far
better terms than any Peruvian had been
able TO do He extended his enterprises
and built a railroad all over Bolivia.
country that, as an English financier said,
never promises TO pay, and never pays.
And yet Melgs succeeded in placing BO-
livian bonds at so much better terms than
the government financiers thought posi-
bic that they begged Of him that he would
return to the government lot OF UNI
placed bonds that it might claim the ben
EFT OF the premium. They made a salts
factory arrangement with him and he re-
turned the bonds. 1t is needless TO say
that they were utterly unable TO dispose
of them.
Although wasteful in the expenditure
OF money, he was personally man of sim
pie habits and tastes. He was plain in
manner and never eXtraVagant in dress.
His conversation was filled with admir-
able practical sense. He had no educat-
ton, but he knew a great deal about men.
As an organizer and contractor of
grand works he was never equalled in
South America and rarely surpassed any
where.
He was a liberal patron of writer's and
artists, who never went to him for aid
in vain. l remember when he gave $4,000
to Hector Narcla, a distinguished writer
of the Argentine Republic. to enable him
to start a Spanish journal in Paris.
MelgS, no doubt, expected to gain a lit
tie notoriety in Europe by means of the
enterprise. or course, II was failure.
1t was Meigs' custom to educate young
girls, claiming their favors in early wo-
manhood, afterward giving a rich dowry
as an inducement to marriage. When he
lived IN MS quinta at Santiago Ii was his
custom TO keep loose gold in a drawer of
his desk, which, after the fashion of his
prototype, the Count of Monte Cristo, he
would give to women by the handful.
nave seen the gold, and / have seen him
pour 1t into the laps of women who came
to him upon one pretext or another.
"Meigs never talked to me about the
| shadow which hung over his earlier life,
but he knew that l was familiar with it.
The fact that he was a criminal and
fugitive, and that he could not return to
his native land made his life gloomy.
finally he set his friends and his money
to work, and few years before his death
amnesty. But he never availed himself
| of the privilege. He died of paralysis in
Lima, after l left South America. What
fortune, if any, he left l have, no means
his lifetime he was the richest man in
South America"