Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-12-25
Samuel Lewis, the Famous Money
Lender Of London.
His LONG List OF CUSTOMERS
The Profits Of # His Profession Are
Something Enormous.
A FIGURE IN VANITY FAIR

Special Correspondents Of The Evening Star.
| LONDON. December 10. 1897.
What pity 1hackeray had not lived to
embody in a second Vanity Fair Samuel
| Lewis, esquire, lender of moneys to the
peerage of England, and his customers, the
Lord William Nevills. who trap their
friends into putting honest names to other
wise flimsy promises to pay. Lewis Is so
| distinctly in Thackeray's line, so peculiar
also to the British aristocracy an institu-
ton so Indigenous and so indispensable to
| the upper trust thereof. One can fancy
! Rawdon Crawley sinking off Pccadily in
| to the Lewis cash emporium, No. II Cork
street. to discover what his expectations
| through the unctuous elder brother. Sir
! Fit Crawley, bart, might profit him in
| cash in hand. And the minds eye can see
| the SNUG covered carriage of Samuel Lewis
stopping before that modest little back
door to Gaunt House, in Gaunt Square, to
appraise Lord Steynes ancestral plate in
| the Steyne time Of need.
| If all the skeletons of VANITY Fair" were
| to be paraded from their closets into sun
! light, how the trail CT the Samuel Lewises
might be seen warmed through their dry
bones. What tragedies Of younger sons.
| tutored 10 champagne appetites, finally to
| be thrust from the paternal thresholds to
maintain the same on beer incomes. Thack-
erays so-cai.ed fiction was amazingly
| would walk down into history, For Thack-
! eray's so-caled fiction was amazingly
/ stepped in reality. Any man in London
| can tell you who was the original of Lord
Steyne; they viii point out his heir of the
| thlrd generation strolling in the church
| parade or Hyde Park any Sunday morning
Ihey will inform you who was Rawdon
| CraWley also and who Sir Pitt; name the
| real names OF the sporting Captain Mac
| murdo. he Of the purple whiskers: Mr.
| Wenh;Lm, the go-between for the noble lord
| ana direct you to the coy house. not on
| Curzon street where Rawdon found his
! neipmeet entertaining his lordship and in
| ulcate upon the map the exact longitude Of
coventry Island. whittier Crawley was bill
| ieted into exile for the relief of Steyne
Some OF these specifications may be apo
| cnryphai, but, at any rate, there is no harm
| III perpetuatlng them along with the Poca-
nontas and Santa Claus legends. The per-
sons and episodes of Vanity Fair" must
| nave had their being in real life though
the novelist doubtless dressed them for the
purposes of his stage. Samuel Lewis would
nave been thoroughly at home in that
classic company Thackeray would have
painted him from the life and left the i'm
preston with the reader as he did in the
| case OF Mr.. Sam Moss, who kept house in
| CurSltcr street for the compulsory lodging
| OF debtors, that he was a human being
atter all, brother man and not half bad
| fellow. II
Not n bad Sort.
| That is the popular verdict Of London on
Sam Lewis. as everybody knows him: that
ne is not bad sort. Instances of his gem
crosby figure in the repertoire of London's
| after dinner stories His business Is deemed
a necessary evil. and these Britons regard
| .he eVlis incident to the maintenance of
| their arlstocracy with a kind of fond toll
| efallon SO no ore looks down upon the
younger sons--or the older sons and fathers.
| ior mat matter-.whep the wolf a the door
| drives them Cork-street-ward while the as
, SOGldllOn with patrons of oh
| eleVates Mr.. Lewis above his colleagues in
| the note brokerage line whose doors are
balls. e"'
British peer must have his houses and
horses and traps and servants, yachts and
| opera boxes and jewelry morning coats
evening coats, golf coats, cricket coats
| tennis. shooting, dining, walking rum ing
| anu travelling coats, coats in which to be
porn, to grow up, to be christene l, ,narl ed
| ana TO die with all the accessories which
.ney imply, and these he may get by Dor
| rowing, begging from his relatives, lending
| MS ute to the directorate CT shell game
| corporations for a stipend, or marryine- an
american heiress whose parent eats his fish
| with the wrong fork, but the only thing he
| may net do without losing caste il to Iyorl,
| Tor living. Thus, when the tailors wax
too lmportunate, and the bailiffs threaten
TO take possession of the house, as they are
| Sald 10 nave once actually patrolled tn,
| premises of the Duke of Teck and no
! grocer man rings the front door bell and
| announces in his coarse way and in the
nearing of the dining guests, as one did IN
| the halfway OF prince of the royal blood
| That he will not leave until his little bin
| snail have been settled in such straits the
| arlstocrat must betake himself to II Cork
street TO hypothecate his expectations
| mere, unless his future Is too hopelessly
| lnsolVent, he will be given the cash he
! needs at interest varying from 10 to 100 per
| centuni per annum, according to the prob
| abilities of payment But he must not he
| king IN
| street
| Long List of Customers.
| Lewis list OF MISUNDERSTANDING is es-
teemed a word too common, just as certain
J houses in Washington whose menu is in
versely to their frills entertain guests in
stead of keeping boarders-runs high into
the hundreds, and it is believed that he
| never has less than two or three million
pounds af1oat in the community on terms
| or living profit. One Of those notes given
by Lord William Nevill, which have Just
brought Mr. Lewis again before the camera
| OF public interest. was, according to the
| testimony in court, for the sum of f3. OOO
| Tor which Il $40 interest was to be paid
and 1t was testified that other transactions
in the course of two or three years with
this ornament of the peerage totaled $50 900
or ESQ 900. Whatever the profits of his pro-
fession may be. they enable Mr.. Lewis to
live in richer style than most Of his pat
| ronS can carry.
| ANY american VINO desires to see this
great and unique parsonage unprofesson-
ally can find him at theatrical first night.
He will be seen always in a box, to speak
more accurately, in the best box. He is
round, well-fed looking man, apparently on
the desirable slope OF forty, with jet black
| waxed mustache and curly hair to
match, sharp, black beads of eyes, sportish
! in his general cut, with the air of a race
| track follower. He Is not unpleasant in
looks, nor does his face mirror the tradi-
tional f1inty heart of the money lender. To
be viewed in his glory. however, Lewis
must be framed in his box at the Royal
Opera IN Covent Garden. as, for instance,
| at the Jubilee performance, when princes,
generals, dukes and ambassadors were
| thick as congressman at an Inauguration
| On such occasions the blaze of diamonds
which irradiates from the Lewis party out
shines the display Of crown Jewels in the
tower Gossips may whisper innuendo con-
| corning the source OF these diamonds but
as the pearl necklace encircling the white
| throat Of duchesssin the next box may
have been purchased with money put up by
the same Mr.. Lewis. 1T is really all game
Of give and take, and it doesn't do to go
| burrowing beneath the surface Of things