The Holbrook news., 1911-07-07

The vanity of riches" has never been more strikingly demonstrated than by the story of G. E. Dering. who recently died at Lockley Hall. .Walwyn.
 For the greater part of half a cen tury this lord of many acres and of a quarter of a million of money has been content to lead the life of a hermit in his magnificent home sur rounded by a thousand acres of park land His valuable pictures-by Hol- bein, Fra Bartolomeo and other old masters-have stood for a generation stocked three deep with their faces turned to the walls; a generation of dust had settled undisturbed on Ores den vases, gold and enamel clocks, statuary and costly furniture.
 Gorgeous carriages, rich with her aldic painting, lay rotting in his coach house; his front door was overgrown with ivy as high as the stone shield of arms that crowned 1t Not even lamb was allowed to bleat within hear ing of the lord of this desolate man sion; and even the high road was di- verted, that no sound of traffic should vex his ears. Thus, amid dust, decay and desolation, lived and died the owner of e25.0O0 year, stunning the world and scorntng his wealth.
 And so it has always been and al- ways will be. One man squandered his gold; another hoards or despises it. It is but few years since one of our wealthfest baronets-a man with a rent roll of e3O,OO0 a year-died in miserable attic near Water loo Bridge. His sordid room was pa pered with illustrations from the week ly papers; he never crossed its threshold except for an occasional solitary ramble by night; no one was ever allowed to enter his dreary sane tum, his meals being left for him out side the door; and his long days were spent looking through his attic win dow on the moving panorama of the Thames.
 While Sir Henry Delves Broughton was sitting at his attic window a man Infinitely richer was walking the streets of St. Petersburg in the guise of beggar. pocketing the aims of charitable passers-by, and gleefully carrying back his spoil to his miser- able two-storied cottage in one of the city's slums.
 That was the only palace" of the multi-millionaire Solodovnikof, where he lived among his decrepit sticks of furniture with an old housekeeper. Here he would sit shivering through the cold winter days, too miserly to allow himself fire or even to bright en. the dark house with the light of solitary candle. For 20 years he was only known to wear one suit, thing of shreds and patches" scarcely a vestige of the original cloth remain ing. And yet this sordid-living her init was one of the greatest landown- CTS and railway magnates in all Rus sia-a man who left behind him hun dred million roubIes Far wealthier than many kings, he led a life from which most peasants would have shrunk
 A few years ago there was no wealthier man in all Paris than M. Colasson, who for generation had lived as a pauper tn two rooms of his magnificent palace in the Rue Galilee. During all this period he never once left his splendid prison, and no one was ever allowed to enter it except his one faithful attendant, who kept him supplied with his daily food of bread and eggs. As in MT. Dering's case. 1t was the death of father that consigned him to his hermit life, so with M. Colasson it was the tragic death by fire of loved nephew and heir in 1874 that decided him to for swear the world and all it's vanities.
 Within few weeks of the death of M. Colasson there died in an attic in a Berlin slum one Herr Schwarz. who was known to and pitied by his neigh bors as the poorest of the poor. He sallied out daily into the fashionable quarters, dressed in rags and carrying c sack in which he collected crusts.
 He lived alone and died alone, a mere bag of bones-surrounded by riches. for in his room was found 6 SO,OO0-in gold coins, stored in scores of jars and bottles, and in bank notes, with which his pillow and mat tress were stuffed.-Tit-Bits.