The age-herald., 1900-07-04
II HUNG CHANG
 AND HIS MONEY

America has a sort of monopoly on the
 possibilities that exist for the friendless, helpless boy and that no hand but a de-
 moeracy can ever show such startling and
 rapid evolutions from poverty and hum
 ble surroundings to great wealth and pow
 CT.
 Let us turn to China-the oldest mon
 archy in existence today, a country sup
 posed by many good people to be an old
 fashioned, empty bomb that various na-
 tions are now rolling around the may pre-
 paratory to showing off the earth alto
 gether. Some day they will touch the fuse.
 When they do the legend of the inquisitive
 youth and the buzz say will cover the
 result.
 Ii Hung Chang, the "old fox with the
 gray goatee," as Vizevona, the Italian free-booter, once called him, is a man
 whose wealth is repute6 to be on a level
 with that of the Rockefellers, Rothschilds and Vanderbilts, though students of Chi
 nese history will tell you that he could buy up any two of them. In 1S4O this repre- sentative of dead nation was a puny orphan boy, working on rice boat in
 the marshes of Hwei Ling, where he was born. His life was bounded on all sides by the rice fields
 Imagine this barefooted beggar lad earn ing a few handfuls of food a day for his l labor, shut in the heart of a province crowded with poverty-stricken collies-a father and mother laborers before him. The village settlement, twenty miles away, was a place that, in his widest dreams,
 he probably neve hoped to be able to visit
 Make a little leap and see this small earth
 creature as he is today, swaying millions of his countrymen with his bare word,
 more powerful in reality than the empress if he choose to act, the friend and 1ntl- mate of the leading potentates and states men of the world the only channel through which the powers can hope for the paeifi- cation of China-and the richest man in the world.
 How many other instances are there to- day of vast wealth allied to statesmanship, of mllionaires being the unquestioned leaders of their fellow countrymen? Not one We are accustomed to see great for tunes made in a few years, to hear of half dozen successful stock manipulations placing a financier in the "six thoughts" column, and to watch a business grow to enormous proportions, enriching it's found-  time.
 But Lii Hung Chang's exchequer has been built up in a different way. He never gam bles for he has no need to take any chances. Many a mickle makes muckle" seems to have been his policy and the mild-mannered old gentleman has done fairly well by sticking to the tenets of that homely Scotch proverb
 To understand fully the manner in which Lii Hung Chang has acquired his enormous wealth it would be necessary to under stand the whole system and method of life and government in China, but in general way a few facts may throw some light on the subject It may be said in starting that Lii Hung Chang, though the greatest, is only one of Chinas millionaires. There are twenty thirty of them, and having had the sagacty to acquire their wealth, they know pretty well how to take care of it. The strongest European bank ing institution and gilt-edged government bonds and funds are the great storehouses of these Chinese fortunes.
 In 1S44 Ii Hung Chang, by some freak of fortune that nobody has been able to discover the truth about reached Canton and a year later thanks to the way in which ragged, friendless beggar lad can seek and obtain an education while the state feeds and clothes him in that "effete" and 'barbarous' land, he was admitted to the famous study cells. In 1Si9, after five years of hard work, he had outstripped all competitors and became secretary of the
 Viceroy of Kowloon Province. In the fol- lowing year this Viceroy led 50,00O men against rebel uprising He was killed in action, and Ii Hung Chang took his place,
 pursued the enemy and won great vic tory.
 In 1851 he was called to Pekin and became Secretary of War, and in the ten years fol- lowing he studied and mastered the whole intricate system of his countrys govern ment. The year 1865 saw him still poor young man, but when he was appointed governor of Kiang Su he began to accumu- late money.
 In Niang Su are the great salt mines of
 China, and the governor of the district has the privilege of farming the monopoly. Then, too he began to round up the man. darins in his province. They tried to tell this young, quiet-mannered Governor that | they were only earning bare living out of | their fees, but he astonished them by ex- l hibiting complete knowledge of their 1 methods, and soon 50 per cent of their emol- | uments went into his capacious pockets. l In 1863 came the great rebellion, and Gen eral Gordon began his triumphal march against the insurgents. Ii Hung Chang, l the war genius of the empire became his righthand man, and after four years of marvellous success on the field his Emper- l or loaded him down with more honors and emoluments. In 1865 he was appointed Gov | ernor General of the Liang King provinces | with four Viceroys and 1,S00 mandarins un- | der his orders and absolute control of the | salt tax, the rice tax, the stamp tax and l the house tax-all infinitesimal charges on | the individual-but when one directs the 1 mulching of 190,0o0o0O people it is the frac- l tions that count.