The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1922-07-11
Bottomly, London Money Wizard
Now in Prison, Once Poor Youth
Started Life as Clerk in Musty Law Offices Became Great
National Figure-Was Powerful Factor in
English War Times.

at the peak. He could look down on
almost anyone in England. Millions
read his articles. He regained his
heat in parliament havig settled his |
bankruptcy. He bought newspapers. !
He lost thousands of pounds gambling |
he always lost.
And while he was at the peak of his
career he sought to help out the gov
eminent by floating hundreds of thous- |
ands of pounds worth of victory bonds |
and government savings certificates. |
He announced tho scheme; investors |
were to send money for which they
would be given shares in the bond
clubs. Each year there would be draw
ings and winners would be paid huge
prizes out of the interest on the bonds. !
He received in small lots, most OF II in
subscriptions of pound or two huge
sum probably about a million pounds.
There was no security except his word
to repay, and no one asked for any
more.
Wherever Bottomley went, to the
races, to the theatre, to parliament to
ask one of his many questions of the
/ government, there were smiles and
cheers. When he sat in Commons he
sat among little group of retired adj
mirals and generals whose election he
had obtained on the Bottomley ticket,
which was economy and honesty of
| government and justice to the eX-serv-
ice man. He might almost have been
called the national hero.
Became M. P.
An institution in England. talking
| and living and thinking in millions,
his name one that for years had been
| conjured with and cursed, Horatio Bot
| tomly in 1906 became Horatio Bottom
| ley M. Representative of the con-
/ stituency of South Hackney, in the
! poor East End Of London in the House
| Of Commons.
He had always wanted a seat in
Commons, and had made his first bio
| for election when he was twenty-seven
years of age. Now he was forty-six
| Bottomley's legal knowledge, his elo-
| quence and his adroitness In cross-ex-
animation had long been the wonder OF
| the courts. He was always a moth
around the lamp of litigation. Always
| pleading his own cause If the cause
were important, sometimes with half
a-dozen lawyers helping him to keep
his papers straight, he sued and was
sued frequently.
His companies had been formed all
through England and the little islands
around England, with their own cor
poration laws. Most of the companies
had lived briefly but gloTiously, and
had died suddenly and ingloriously, the
mourners often without even corpse
to weep over.
+ His Enterprises
/ Now Bottomley could look back upon
the distant days when he had branch
ed out from his financial interests and
become public speaker of note. He
had started a racing stable at the
little dream-cottage, the Dicker, now
a huge, luxurious manion in the CEN
ire of an estate of a thousand acres.
His horses ran on all the principal
tracks, and whenever they ran Bottom
ley had money on them-real money.
No one ever accused him of dishon-
esty as a racing man. A trainers plea
that a horse was not in condition to
win made no difference to Bottomley.
If one of his horses was in a race
Bottomley backed it. He lost lot OF
money. He didn't care what the odds
were.
What difference does it make" he
said, 'if get 2 to or 20 to 1 AS long
, as the horse wins?"
He liked to play at the Continental
casinos; and the croupiers smiled
when he entered and laughed when he
left
: Now Bottomley became also Horatic
! Bottomley, the big newspaper pro
| prietor. He had founded the Financia
+ Times, at present, long under othel
!, ownership, one of the leading financial
) papers of London. He founded Johr
: Bull, weekly magazine which under
his editorship, and by virtue mainly
Of his personality and the articles he
t wrote in it secured the largest circu
; lation of any periodical of its kind II
i Great Britain. 1t still holds both cir
culation and prestige among the work
ing classes.
i Both in John Bull and In parliament
q BottomleY was always bitterly anti