The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-08-19
HOW THE MILLIONAIRES LIVE.


rious than were most of the best shops
ten years ago. And in the best shops
you are dazzled and overwhelmed by
the careless torrent of luxury-enor-
nous quantities, enormous prices,
throngs of customers. Twenty-Five
dollars for a pair of shoes, fifteen dol
lars for a pair of stockings, two hun
dred dollars for a hat, one thousand
dollars for a hat-pin OF parasOl, fifteen
hundred for a small gold bottle for a
woman's dressing-table, thirty or for
ty thousand for a tiara, a hundred
thousand for a string of pearls-these
are prices which statesmen will give
you with the air of one who tells an
oft-toId tale.
Why has an income of ten thousand
a year become a mere competence in
New York City to-day? Why do the
families with ten times ten thousand
| regard themselves as far from rich?
Why do enough New Workers to make
a ~populous city regard it as a priva-
ton if they cannot keep at least two
| servants, one of them a man-servant,
and ride in cabs and have a country
place in summer?
The explanation is-the multi-mil-
lionaire.
A CITY WITH THOUSANDS OF MIL
LIoNAIREs.
There are in New York City to-day
upward of a thousand fortunes of two
or more millions. About one-fourth
of these are of more than ten millions.
There are no less than forty-eight for
tunes of more than forty millions, up
ward of a dozen of them more than
seventy-fve millions, and half a dozen
of them lie between seventy-fve mil
lions and the mountainous aggrega-
ton of the Oil King-three-quarters
of a billion, with an income of not
less than forty-fve millions a year.
There is no way of estimating the
number of fortunes of from three
, quarters of a million to two millions.
The income of a million dollars, safe
ly invested, is about forty thousand a
year. Many men-several thousands
of men-have from their profession or
their business annual incomes, availa-
bic for living purposes, of forty thou
sand or thereabouts; yet their hold
ings of property are small. But they
belong in the millionaire class because
they spend money like m~illionaires.
It is the multi-millionaires who set
and force the pace-the families with
incomes of more than a quarter of a
million a year. "a man with a humid
red thousand a year." said the late
Pierre L~orillard, "is in the unhappy
position where he can see what a good
time he could have if only he had the
money" And he added that easy cir
cumstances meant "a thousand dollars
a day-and expenses"
ONG 1hOOSAND LIZ A DAY u
EXPENSES.
Properly and comfortably to live in
the style which New York most envies
and admires and encourages, a family
should have an income of three-quar-
tiers of a million at least. But by econ
omy and abstention from too great
self-indulgence, and by Spartan resis-
tance of any fascinating temptations,
they may keep up the appearances of
a very high degree of luxury on a
quarter of a million a year. Of course,
they can't have very many or very
grand houses; they must not think of
racing stables; they would do well to
keep out of yachts; they must be sat
isfed to see themselves frequently and
far outshone IL jewels and in enter
tainments; they must keep down their
largess, their benevolences-it is "bad
form" for a New York millionaire not