New York Misers | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 24, 1871

New York Misers.

It is not generally known that New York at the present time contains a large number of misers as inveterate and degraded as any on record; and if we had space we could give a series of portraits of avarice and wealth which would make the reader shudder. Many of these misers are old business men, who have withdrawn from active life, and still keep up their faded and weather-stained signs, and beneath the garb of trade, ply their money-saving habits. These men will be found sitting solitary in dingy offices, filled with cobwebs, and thick with the dust of years. Money-borrowers know where to go; and here these pale and threadbare fossils receive the best securities for their daily loans. Some of these half-starved wretches, whose trembling hands can hardly sign a check, can draw for sums that would shake a bank. One of the richest men in the city is now to be found in just such a dingy hole as we have described, where he loans enormous sums daily. He was a merchant once, and his old sign is still up; and inside, things remain as they were half a century ago. He suffers daily for the comforts of life; but all this is compensated for by the pleasure of accumulation. “They come to me to beg,” said the old man to an acquaintance, “and there’s not a beggar in New York that does n’t live as well as I do”—a statement which was quite true.

A specimen of the better class of this genus was given in the late Exchange-place robbery, where Rufus Lord, a man upwards of four score, was the solitary occupant of an office which contained between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 in stocks and securities—all his own. Here this old man sat, day after day, accumulating at the rate of $2,000 per week, no doubt hoping in due time to get rich. Such a hoard was worth tapping, and the job was one of the neatest and most successful ever done in New York.

The late Stephen Whitney was a striking instance of the commercial miser. When we knew him, he had made about $10,000,000, and at the age of seventy-five was trying hard to get rich. The person and countenance of this wretched man were a study. The tremulous form, the sharpened features, and the solicitous eye, told of the one idea which mastered the soul. Mr. Whitney was in his day to be seen habitually in Wall street, picking his way along among the brokers and sharpers, and buying notes, of which he was a good judge. He bought none but the best, and seldom made a bad purchase. His son-in-law was in a heavy business; but his paper was not considered first-rate, the only chance of his successes being that the old man would keep him up. This chance we used to hear discussed, and on its probabilities his paper found a market. But the old man did not keep him up, and he showed himself too sharp to be gulled by so near a relative. Mr. Whitney was something of a politician, and on one occasion the leaders of his party came with an application for funds for electioneering purposes. “Gentlemen,” was the reply, “I am with you, heart and body. As for money, I have none; but to help along, I will come and sit up all night and fold ballots.”

Some of these New York misers are utterly recluse, while others are social, and often meet to discuss methods of money-making. The group occasionally seen in a certain old rookery, where a few millions are represented in hungry forms and seedy raiment, would be a study for an artist. The great complaint with this class is, that “interest is down, money is cheap, and the country is going to ruin. Only five per cent on good paper, and six on bond and mortgage; and as for seventy-thirties, they pay well enough; but one may get his throat cut taking care of them. The world’s made up of thieves and beggars, and there is no use of trying to get along.”