Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1899-01-04
He Did Not Care For Money.

There recently died in Australia an
extraordinary man-James Tyson. He
began life as plough man and amas-
sed fortune of $25,000,0O0. But it
IDEAS of Tyson that made him an eX-
,raordinary man, not his accumulation
Of wealth from small beginnings
other men-we have them in the
United States-have made great for
-unes by industry, frugality and a
genius for remunerative investment
out if there is just such another man
Is Tyson in America he has escaped
he notice of the newspaper biographer
When Tyson first sough employmentas
arm hand at the age. of II his wages
we're fixed at $3.50 a year, and it is
likely that he had no thought of own
ing more soil than stuck to his boots.
When he died he was proprietor of
100000 acres, and his leases covered
many thousands of square miles. Yet
he did not care for money. The lux
uries it buys he never indulged in. He
wore suit of clothes as long as it
nung together; the old silver watch he
carried was attached to his buttonhole
Dy a leather shoe lace, and he ate only
he coarsest fare, the fare of a day
iaborer. During his life of II years he
never wore linen shirt or a glove,
and for soap in washing he used sand,
like the stockmen he employed. He
never saw the inside of a church.
theatre of public house, nor had he
ever tasted beer wine or spirits. AS
really knowing how much he had: 81
shall just leave it behind me when
90, shall have done with it then, and
it will not concern me afterwards"
If Tyson didn't care for money, why
was he making so much of it, people
wanted to know. His answer was
terse but sufficient: THE money is
nothing, it is the little game that's the
fun" Mr.. Tyson's little game was
IS he said: "Fightinng the desert.
That has been my work! l have been
lighting the desert all my life, and
was no water, and beef where was no
beef. | have put fences where there
were no fences, and roads where there
we're no roads. Nothing can undo what
[ have done, and millions will be hap
pier for it after | am long dead and
forgotten" 1t isn't necessary, there
fore to ask whether the success of
ryson's game made him happy, al
though he had never taken day off in
his life, At Il it occurred to him that
he had earned the right to travel and
see the world, but he put the tempta-
lion aside. He was. happier playing
his little game than he would have
been beholding all the sights of the
earth. Besides he had always lived
in the open air, and one night in
Pullman sleeping car would probably
have killed him. s- s3s
James Tyson became a capitalist in
the familiar old-fashioned way recon-
mended by Benjamin Franklin; he
saved and saved without despising the
small wages he got. 1t took him years
10 get a start with $500, and this sum
ne invested in cattle in the back eoun-
try in New South Wales, going into
partnership with his brother. The first
year drought killed them all, and with
shilling in his pocket, all he had in
the world, he set out on horseback
across a trackless waste to get $25
Sir John Hay owed him for driving
cattle two years before. He could not
ind his debtors station, and returned
after almost dying of hunger and thirst
10 the little tract owned by his brother
and himself, which during his absence
was sold for $6O With the capital
they began again and throve. Five
years later they separated, James EN-
barking in the enterprise of supplying
the Bendigo diggings with meat lie
made money and began to buy land.
Thereafter he gambled Ia acres, and
luck was with him, but he always inn
proved the property he bought.
Like most men OF great wealth,
James Tyson, according to some of his
neighbors was a mean man, but there
seems to have been little ground for
the accusation. He was really too busy
al his little game 90 think of beneyo-
lenee Once he gave check for the
building Of a church on condition that