Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1897-06-15

cape TOWn TO southampton
London, June ia special dispatch
from Funchal, Island of MADEIRA, off
the west coast of Morocco, says that
on the arrival there to-day of the Brit
ish steamship Scot, which left Table
Bay Cape TOWN. on June 2, for
Southampton, it was announced that
Barney Barnato, the South Africa
Diamond King" who was among the
passengers, had committed suicide by
leaping overheard. His body was re-
covered.
The late Barney Barnato was in many
respects the most remarkable speculator
of the century. OF all the Englishmen
who have taken part in the development
of South Africa, two only have secured
a worldwide reputation. These have
been Cecil Rhodes and Barnett Isaacs,
more often and less respectfully styled
Barney. Barnato was an assumed name,
a sort of stage name, for he began life
in South Africa by exhibiting a trick
donkey some twenty-five years ago. He
was then about 20 years of age.
Barnato was an English Jew, and IL
lustrated in an extraordinary way the
financial genius OF his race. Up to the
point where his fortunes began to de-
cline he made money by leaps and
bounds. and in 1895, when his good for
tune was at its zenith, it was estimated
that he controlled interests in the neigh
borhOod Of hundred million pounds.
1t was the fashion to call him the rich
est man in the world. At that time he
was virtually the king of the London
money market. In the autumn of 1885,
with the boom in Kaffirs, the shares Of
the comparatively new gold mics of the
Transvaal, South Africa, was at its
height, every man, woman and child in
London with money TO invest, invested
it in "Kaffirs." The craze was the last
of those financial fevers which period
ically attack conservative England. the
South Sea Bubble" being the first. For
months it was the controlling passion
in London, and it was scarcely less
rampant in Paris and Berlin. The
shares went to unheard of figures and
fortunes were made in a day.
The centre of this tremendous finan-
cial outburst was Barney Barnato, and
he was conservatively estimated at that
time as worth between $1,000 900 and
S15O,OOO,OOO.
Barnato was born in London. Little
is known as to his early life. He was
a younger son and at the age of twen-
ty, went to South Africa.
The Kimberley diamond mines were
just beginning to be productive. With
his few pounds of capital he began
dealing in diamonds in a small way.
Everything he touched he made sue
cessful. In five years he had earned
enough in the retail sale of diamonds
to purchase shares in the mines from
which his merchandise had come. Be-
fore another five years had elapsed
his holdings at Kimberley had become
very large, and when the Transvaal
gold fields were discovered he had
profits to invest in them.
Although Barnato represented Kim
berley twice in the Cape Legislature.
he had little time to give to politics,
and little interest in that field Of actiy-
ity.
While in Africa he married and had
three children, two sons and a daugh-
ter, who survive him.
Barney's marriage had a tinge OF
unusualness about it. While in South
Africa, making his first start in life.
he accumulated lot of diamonds,
NOlt III ptludpo MY luOuSduu pOuuuSi
which he gave, for safe-keeping, to a
bar maid friend of his. After an un-
usual long absence in the interior, he
came TO the girl one day, in great
haste, and said: "Give me my dla-
monds; | am off for England, and
when l return we will be married"
IF you please, sir" said the knowing
girl, I'VE will be married first" and
she held the point so we'll that the
ceremony was performed and Barney,
his wife and the diamonds left for
England together.
About a month ago 1t was rumored
that his health was suffering from the
severe tension Of speculation and in
the latter part of May, it was reported
from Cape Town that he was suffering
from nervous prostration. and had
been placed by his friends under re-
straint. This was subsequently denied
by his London representative, wh1
said that Barnato was suffering from
slight attack of Cape fever, not likely
to prove serious.