The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-01-26


he found her she showed him two bottles
of pebbles. among which were six or
eight diamonds. He gave her four SOW
ereigns for the lot, and that was his first
! experience as a diamond buyer.
Then came the discovery of gold at Jo-
hannesburg. A rumor reached Robinson
tnat something was going on in the coun-
try outside Pretoria, and he took horse
! and wagon and rode there as quickly as
possible. The experts told him that
there was nothing in the place; but one
of Mr.. Robinson's rules has always been
to disbelieve in experts, so he bought up
few farms around johannesburg.
He bought one farm for $1,000 after
finding that great auriferous reef ran
through it. He bought another for e. 800
which is now worth several millions; and
in fact he got several millions of gold
bearing land at little more than the price
of prairie. People thought he was a mad
man, and when he went back to Pretoria
he saw them looking suspiciously at him.
What is the matter?" he asked
OH an old friend of his-a Doctor
said, don't you know what they are say
ing about your"
NO"
We'll, they say, and they tap their
heads when they say it, that's a man
who made a lot of money in diamonds
and now he is throwing it away in the
Transvaal'
1t was soon found that every pound
Robinson had spent on the farms would
bring back a thousand; and almost In a
few weeks the great city of Johannes
burg sprang up. It's troubles have been
the common property of the world, but
for years Mr.. Robinson showed little
sympathy with the Uitlanders.
He had lived so long with the Beers
and knew them so intimately that he
found he could do more by working in
friendship with them. His enemies said
that a himself wanted to become the
President of the Transvaal. At all events
he worked hard for his old friend Kruger.
He established papers that supported
him; he used all his influence to keep
him in power. At the same time he
worked hard, though secretly, to induce
the old ruler to grant the strangers nee
essary reforms.
citing, the President more and more OBJ
stinate. Year after year Robinson strove
by every means to have the faults of the
Government remedied. People still i'm
agined that he was Kruger's friend, but
day by day they were becoming more es-
tranged
1t was not, however, till a few weeks
ago that war was declared between them
Early in October, when England was
planning calling out an army carps, and
the Boer forces were assembling near
Laing's Mex Mr.. Robinson launched his
thunderbolt and declared himself In out
spoken opposition to the Boer Govern
ment
Park Lane seems to be the Afrikander's
idea of Heaven. Poor Barney Barnato
lived there also. There could not be a
greater contrast than that between the
quiet, if splendid homes of Belt and Bar
nato's tasteless place.
Barney, too went out to South Africa
as a poung man; but he emerged from
the crowded dens of Whitechapel, and be-
fore going he had been employed selling
boot-laces in front of the Stock Elk
change.
When he returned to England the re-
puted owner of s5OO0O,00 London society
stretched out its arms to him. But Barn
ey was too original even for the eclectic
hostesses of Mayfair. He could make
millions; he was never comfortable in
spending them.
His sister, who kept fried-fish shop in
East London, refused to give up her es-
tablishment. And Barney was never so
happy as when he escaped from the city
and got down to the fish shop for a rest.
He realized, when he had got his money,
that he was too old to learn the ways of
society. But he had brains enough to
know that the peaple who fawned on him
wanted his money and not himself Even
in the hours of his greatest prosperity he
could only stand London life by constant
sttmulants to jog his nerves.
He determined TO startle London by
building an extraordinary mansion. He
bought a long, narrow strip of land in
Park Lane for $25O,OOO and put up a house
at a cost of some 100000 more. The ex-
terror of the house with its ford style
its statuettes, its carvings, grated on the
nerves. The display inside was to exceed
that without There was a ballroom
seventy feet long, the walls panelled with
rich silk, the ceiling ornately moulded
billiard rooms. a monster rrawing-room
and Conservatives were furnished in
such style as the aristocracy of Park
Lane never before saw.
IA
owner Barney Barnato had drunk the
cup to the dregs, and the dregs were bit
ter. One day, with the madness of over
wrought nerves, he plunged into the sea
when going from the Cape to England.
His executors sold the house TO a fam
lily of Ceylon milnonaires-the Sasoons-
who n inhabit it. Their first act was
to clear t-Cm the exterior all the ford
decorations.
Park Lane, however. is not wholly CIV
en- up to South African millionaires.
Among the temporary residents there is
Lady Henry Somerset, inheritor or her
fathers ducal estates. whose devotion to
philanthropy is familiar.
Dorchester House, the enormous man
sion toward the Piccadilly end, is the
property Of Capt. G. L. Holford, who
finds it a white elephant. His ancestor
built so big a mansion-a dreary wilder
ness of rooms-that he cannot afford to
occupy it,
Occasionally, when any important
state visitor comes along, the Govern
ment hires it as his residence; thus when
the Shadaza came TO London it was made
MS home, and each evening his muezzins
mounted the towers OF the house and
faced east. as though they were on the
49,. lrnh-.f --r,rr, q