Evening star., 1901-09-28
TROUBLES OF THE RICH.
How the Man With 100000 a Year
Has to EcOnomize.

From the London Spectator.
Fifty years ago, though incomes had for
some time been swollen by the profits of
trade and manufactures, a man who de-
rived 10000 year from land or secure in
vestments was still accounted rich. Lord
Beaconsfied, then Mr.. Disraeli. and one of
the keenest observers of society who ever
existed fixed the figure even lower, declar-
ing that, with any basis of good manage
ment, $4,000 a year without draw
backs was a veritable Aladdin's lamp.
Wealth now begins with f2o.000 a year, nor
will the possessor of that formerly splen-
did income feel if he lives up to his posi-
ton, as free from care about money as if
he We're really rich. When he has paid for
his country house, with its modern garden
and hired "shootngs," for his London
house and it's occasional entertainments,
for his wfe's and daughters dresses for
fair moor in Scotland, for modest
yacht for six weeks in the year, and for
annual trip to the continent, he will find
that the amount of free money left to graf
ify his personal tastes is very little indeed.
He does not, in fact, feel the freedom
which is the grand advantage of wealth;
perhaps Its sole advantage compared
with competence, still less the sense of
complete exemption from pecuniary anXi-
eties. He has not a pound too much, even
If he is a fair manager, and will find that
he has to avoid many expenses which his
richer neighbors incur almost without
thinking, and that he is not reckoned over
any wide countryside as a man of very
large means. He will not have TO live
quietly, or to keep himself notably out of
the usual routine of his rank, but the new
prosperity of the country has altered the
scale of everything, all luxuries have in
creased enormously in cost, though neces-
sarles have not, and at the end of the year
he will begin to think whether this or that
outlay could not be economical.
Snt, Nr-. /
inherited what used to be the magnificent
sum of half a million sterling he will find
1t very difficult out of business to invest at
4 per cent, for though Americans obtain
they do 1t by trusting industrial specula-
tions which the average Englishman once
out of the city thinks too uncertain for his
children's future. We will, however allow
him per cent, which on half a million is
$4,000 a year, that is, 10000 with the
shilling income tax, which is deducted be-
fore the income reaches him, taken off He
has to buy town house, which will cost
him t2o,oo, and a country house and es-
tate In pleasant county, which with the
necessary rebuilding to suit his special
taste Will run away with fS0.0O0 or ESQ.,
600 more. There is the income of his es-
tate, to be sure, to come to him but he
Will find that when he has paid for repairs
and scolded his bailiff for the losses on the
home farm-indispensable. you know, for
supplies-satfsfied his tenants complaint
and paid his rates and his tithes. and
hired the extra shootings his keepers are
anxious for, and provided for the upkeen
of his park with its lodges and gates and
above all, roads, that income is almost a
negligible quantity. Then there are two
great houses to be well furnished on a
scheme in keeping with his new position
which Implies few good pictures and
some marbles, and mony books all new
and paid for at prices which bear no re-
semblance to those they will fetch one day
at auction. He will be fortunate If the
bills leave much of 1900, that is he will
have spent in setting up or installing him
self tl3O,OOO, or, in other words reduced his
free income to f14.000 year, a sum which
as he approaches fifty, will be further re,
duced by allowances to his sons penstons
and other claims which have grown nm
on him to, say, 10000 a year which IS too
little for the scheme of life he has adontad
There are SO many more rich men than
formerly that everything they seek for
especially fine houses, fine furnitur, anS
opportunities OF sport, has risen n price Inv
leaps and bounds The scale has alter.d
and to keep among the first few reo,:I.,s
means Which to our grandfathers would
have appeared immense. We see no urons
that vice has increased-certafnly that OF
gambling has not, though It is fa- TOO
preVaient-and we are not sure about tho
wastefulness. There seems to be r,o-s 81
1t because there is more money wasted
put is the proportion greater? We think
not, the number of the sensible and thrifty
having increased as much as that OF Tho
spendthrifts, while the proportion OF the
philanthropic has been indefinitely en-
larged.