The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1902-09-11
RICHES, RANK AND MISERY.
Life of Some Titled Englishmah,
Says an Authority.

We have in our midst a million
airess who has never been reconciled
to her husbands ill-gotten wealth.
On her countenance one traces a
look of bemused bewilderment that
has become her habitual expression.
Dimly and dumbly she has realized
that such colossal wealth, dishonest
ly acquired, must necessarily consti-
tute a curse. She roams through her
barnlike mansion with an affiighted
air which betrays a haunting obses-
sion, says the London Empire.
On one occasion she was found
weeping on the doorstep-a victim of
hysterical grief. The insolence and
extravaganza Of the costly crudities
with which her husband has encum-
bered his "palace" cause her simple
soul to imagine weird things. What
are they for? Why is she surround
ed by these objects, so foreign to her
lowly, primitive nature? She lives in
constant and nervous dread of some
impending calamity.
To alleviate her haunting misery
she has engaged four detectives to
guard her and her treasures. They
are dressed as footmen The princi-
pal pleasure now INDUCED in by this
pathetic creature is to peer through
the halls and passages to make sure
that her guardians do not relax their
vigilance. This pleasure is beginning
to pail, and there il every fear that
her millions will ultimately crush her
and deprive her Of her reason.
Haunted by the ghastly specter Of
her wealth, she starts up at night
in feverish perspiration consumed
by "A horrible dread of some frightful
disaster which she Is powerless to
avert.
And her husband2 He is tired OF
her, Of her miserable whining, her
haunting white face and generally
depressing temperament. He is Gym
ical, jovial and never suffers from
any qualms of conscience. lie has
made what he calls "a pot of money
by the promotion of shady com
panies. And he intends to enjoy it.
He frequents the race course and
other resorts Of the pieasure-loying
The money squeezed from the
widow, the orphan and the curate is
recklessly squandered among all the
vile parasites which compose the fast
section of London society. He is
popular; the press speaks well Of
him; he Is welcome figure in the
most exclusive society. He is SO rich
he gives such good dinners, he puts
his friends into such good things"
out of which they make money.
At whose expense? They never
stop to think. They need money; he
puts them in the way of obtaining It.,
No further do they trouble. Leaving
his haunted wife to roam through the
corridors of his palace" he looks
on the wine when it is red, basks in
the smiles OF the fair, enjoys the in
cense OF the venal press and varies
his pleasures by taking frequent trips
TO Paris, where his face Is as well
known as In London.
lie Is perfectly well aware that he
IS a swindler who has wrecked thou
sands of homes. But he is equally
well aware that the law cannot touch
him, that lawyers, diyines, aristo-
Gratis, official and even judges can be
bought by n portion Of his ill-gottcn
gains. And he drains the cup Of
pleasure to the drcgs--cynical, in
souciant, typical product of the age
which invented the onc-pound stcr-
ling share for the bettero despoiIing
of the ignorant and the innocent.
Surely he will float another big com
pany.