The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-08-15
TALE OF A FORTUNE
RASTED---MORELOS TELLS HOW
 HE SPENT

Gambling, Part in Business ven-
 tures-He Is Working as a Day La
 borer Now.
 Pasadena, Cal, Aug. IA modern prodigal has been doing the hardest kind of manual labor in Pomona Val ley during the last half year. For a few months he was a day Iaborer. dig ging trenches for sewers in tine streets of this city, and now he is in a section gang of railroad trackmen.
 He is Manuel Guzman Morelos, a member of a prominent family of Mon terey, Mexico. When he was left an orphan in 1898 he had $337,0OO to his credit in bank in Monterey. He was then P. To-day, at the age of 26, he has not one cent left of his fortune.
 He has not even bit of the wealth of family silver; not souvenir of the fine old Morelos mansion, not a stray garment from his former wardrobe of more than 700 pieces. Not so much as a single article of jewelry out of the 5 herited remains in his possession. Ev- erything has gone.
 Most of his property took wings in New York and European capitals. Too proud to let his relatives and friends in Mexico know how thoroughly his patri- mony had been dissipated, he came to southern California and sought his live lihood by the first work that he could get. Here among strangers he has been contentedly working with pickaxe and shovel at $1.50 a day, and he says he has really enjoyed life more since he earned his own livelihood than ever before.
 "Oh, I've got over breeding over my frightful prodigality and the sorry state my foolishness has brought upon me-" said Morelos as he sat on a sand bank alongside the Southern Pacific railroad track the other day and munched his monday meal from his tin dinner-pail. Why. yes, I'll tell how spent my fortune.
 "To begin with, was born in Mon- terey, Mexico in 1876. While my fath- CT was making a fortune at the Luneta silver mine mother and I and our ser wants travelled in Europe and Amer ica.
 When I was 19 went to an art school in Paris to please my mother. never had the least taste for art, but the school gave me chance to see gay life.
 Mother died suddenly while we were in Europe and went back to Monterey. For two years I loafed there and in the across the Gulf to Havana.
 "Then came the news that father had dropped dead from apoplexy in his lawyers office in Zacatecas. I was his only heir, and after the mines had been sold, the lawsuits settled and all bills paid, had exactly $337,O00 in gold de- posted in the bank at Monterey.
 Friends came to me by the score. Some helped me to spend my money and a few advised me to employ an honorable man experienced in business to invest my fortune in safe securities.
 With letters of credit in my pocket I started for New York. intending to have one more year of sightseeing and frolic with the lads I knew In Paris and Brussels, and then to settle down and show Zacatecas and Monterey that I could do business as well as my father At New Orleans I met several wealthy young men from Vera Cruz and Guadalajara, Mexico who were travelling about for pleasure, and with our champagne suppers at the St. Charles Hotel, dinners for friends of both sexes at Lake Pontchartrain and the revelry of the Mardi Gras season, saw life through new eyes.
 q had my own money and my com panions told me I had enough of it to live long life of jollity.
 "'You can't carry your money to heaven with you they argued when ever I took a serious view of my heavy bills, so what's the use of pinching and worrying? Let tomorrow take care of itself
 q believe those six weeks in New Orleans cut my fortune down to about $500, ,000. One day three of us chartered special car, had an expert stock it with good things to eat and drink for two weeks and then we started for New York.
 ''On the way we stopped at Atlanta, Richmond, Old Point Comfort, Balti- more and Washington, and got to New York in May. Then another season of hilarity began. Three of us, two Mexi- cans and a friend from Mobile, Ala, went the pace for two months.
 "I landed in private hospital on Riverside Drive. We nominally lived at the Waldorf. but there were days, blanks in my life, when we never saw the hotel. We hired boxes at the opera at $100 a night and never went to oc- cupy them. We would order and pay for elaborate private dinners for our selves and friends and not even think of them until the next day
 "Our acquaintances in the city in- cluded scores of chorus girls, several prima donnas and few fine people who have made fortunes in trade with Spanish America and a multitude of men and women who make an Industry of waiting about New York's hotels for just such people as we were. remem- Der one bill for jewelry scattered among my newly made friends amount ed to $3,700.
 We spent time and money at Coney Island, Long Branch and Saratoga. We made up a party of twenty or so to go to Bar Harbor All the tickets were bought and taiIors and modistes were busy for a fortnight getting our party fashionably dressed and gowned for a