Shiner gazette. [volume] (Shiner, Tex.) 1893-current, 1908-04-02
THE POOREST WOMAN IN
THE WORLD.

OuCn al OllGly llJIlS llSuIS "a
withered leaf, it seems strange
" tossed the financial current
of Broadway. Follow this little
old woman in rusty black and
see her enter the Chemical Ma
tional Bank. She is not the char
woman. The charwoman has
no clothes of such ancient date
as hers, the alpaca gown that
has weathered many seasons,
the black woollen cape that has
shaped itself to the shoulders
as they have bowed through the
last ten years, and the tousled
bonnet with it's little bunch of
towers that faded with the mil
linery of many sumemrs' past.
The shabby little woman is
worth 100000 pounds, even
100000 pounds some esti-
mates say; she is Hetty How
land Robinson Green, greatest
mistress of finance the world
has ever seen. She has more
ready money at her command
than any one individual. Wall
Streets waits at her Golfers. To
her old-fashioned mahogany
desk comes a procession of bank
presidents, hat in hand, railroad
magnates bowling low, and rich
directors humbly making obei-
sance. Even the city of New
York, in need, has brought it's
plea to her, her richest citizen
ess. Coolly, calculatingly, she
listens, balancing want and en-
treaty with a fine niecty of
judgment. Then she drives her
bargain clowly.
Yet Hetty Green is really
bankrupt today-in desire.
With money to buy all the
world holds for sale, it yet holds
nothing she would like. The girl
stenographer who takes her die
tation probably has a lighter
heart under a new spring
gown; the butcher from whom
she buys "chuck steak" at IL
cents a pound has better Sun
day dinner; and her neighbors
in a Hoboken flat, when they
go on a Coney Islando uting,
brighten the monochrome of ex-
istence, with more of color than
varies her drab days. Poor
Hetty Green, least happy wom-
an in New York. The mention
of her name raises a smile at
her persimonious eccentricities.
1t was not always so. Once
Hetty Gren was young, brilliant
and beautiful, one of the bellies
of New York and Saratoga So
ciety. The eligible men of the
men were all at her feet. An
old beau of the sixties who
danced with her says with re-
miniscent wistfulness: "She
was most charming. Her hair
was very brown mad her eyes
were very blue, the necklace of
pearlst hat she wore not whittier
than her slim young throat.
Then her laugh! That ripping,
delicious laugh; I can hear the
music of it Yeti
From this portrait of Hetty
Green look at the Hetty Green
of today, with the faded eyes
that are done with sweet smil-
ing and the stern mouth hard
with the stern lines about it. Be-
ginning with romance and end
ing with pathos-stranger far
than any fiction is the chronicle
of this woman's career. Though
she now lives like a pauper be-
cause she prefers to, she comes
of a family that has had social
position and riches unlimited
for generations. She reads her
title clear to the Mayflower pas
senger list, and her ancestral
shield is starred with Colonial
governorships. New England
to this day smoothes its apron
complacently, and adjusts it's
spectacles proudly as it adds,
"She is a Robinson of the How
land Robinson Inc, and a How
land OF the Round Hill How
lands, you know."---Broadway
MAGAZINE