The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-12-30

employees of his banking house on
Christmas eve, bonuses equal to q
whole years salary. amounting it is
estimated to, more than $350,O0O in
rends members Of r. his h fannie rsa
tives and horde of pensioners de-
pendent upon his bounty he present.
ed another 350.000-making APP
proximately 100000 in all. This
should satisfy the craving Of the
with Andrew Carnegie that 1t is 4
sin to die rich, but not so Mr.. Nor
gan. Some covetous one the other
night under cover of darkness con-
trlved to invade his burglar-proof
poultry house on his Highland Falls
turkeys, recently imported by the
financier. AS a .connoisseur of the
beautiful in nature as well as in art,
Mr. Morgan regarded them as the
finest specimens of their" type that
ever proudly stalked a barnyard. AS
prizes for some of his favored friends,
their theft got on his nerves. and t
Is said he has spent twenty times
what the birds were worth from a
pure food standpoint in detectives
Tees in trying to hunt down the Of
Tending trespasser who annexed them.
There was much surprise evinced
in certain circles this week by the an
nouncement made in the Surrogate's
Court that Mrs. Mary Agnes Ruiz, the
beautiful woman whose name was
intimately associated with that of AL
fred Gwynne Vanderbilt, for several
years following his divorce from his
spirited wife, Elsie French Wander
bilt, had left an estate of but 100000.
Mrs. Ruiz, 1t will be recalled, COM
mitted suicide in London a. little more
than a year ago in a fit of despond-
ency. At the time Vanderbilt was
cutting big caper in the English
capital with his daily coaching part
les from London to Brighton. The
their mutual friends that he had
made her Independently wealthy for
life. Hence. the feeling of amaze
ment excited by the report of the
executor of the dead woman's estate
showing that it amounted to a trifle
more than the great grandson of old
Commodore Vanderbilt is. reputed to
have spent recently for the dinner
that signalized his installation in the
Fabri mansion off Central Park,
which he had taken for the winter.
With the Undertakers' Trust threat
ening to raise the price of funerals
and the announcement of Secretary
Frederick d. Greene, general secre-
tary Of the Hospital Saturday and
Sunday Association, that In line with
it now costs more to be sick than 1t
used to do.
In order to determine how the
growth in the cost of living has af-
fected the hospitals, q typical insti-
tuition was selected and the figures Of
ten years ago were compared with
those of the present time. 1t was
found that in 1900 the daily expense
of maintaining a patient was s117.
while now the cost has grown to
S2.O6. 1t is probable that the latter
figure is slightly above the average.
which is estimated as $3.50 ~-r day.
but it is taken to indicate the gem
eral rate of advance.
AS the institutions represented by
the association gave over a million
days of free treatment to the poor
last year. this increase in the cost of
illness imposes a heavy burden on
them and makes necessary the rails
ing of $1,30O.000 annually to provide
free service for those who cannot
pay.
Surrounded by a host of admiring
friends, Marion Harland" (Mrs. E.
r. Terhune.) had a real old-fashion-
ed birthday celebration the other
day. The writer. sharing none Of
the scruples of her sex respecting the
secrets Of her, age. owned that it was
her eightieth natal anniversary and
her sixty-fifth as a writer.
When she was barely fifteen her
first stories appeared in the early