BELOW on this and the following page we give a faint reproduction of that portion of the real estate of the Astor family that may be found in the original city of New York. That is, this real estate is all on Manhattan Island, and does not include the Astor holdings in other parts of what is now called the Greater New York.
The real estate represented in the illustration herewith if placed in one line would reach a distance of seven miles. One would need to walk quite briskly to traverse it in two hours, and every step he took would represent $15,000 worth of property, or an aggregate of about $100,000,000.
The Astors also have large tracts of land in Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and elsewhere in the West. It is estimated that their mortgages on the property of others amount to from $15,000,000 to $25,000,000. They own a large amount of Railroad securities, and are directors and heavy stockholders in numerous banks. And they have several million dollars worth of property in England beside.
The original John Jacob Astor bought his first American property on the Bowery, New York City, Aug. 14, 1789. The price paid was £250, or about $1,000. The property is still held by the Astor family, and is valued at $200,000. Subsequent purchases were very extensive, for it is estimated that one-twentieth of the real estate of Manhattan Island is now included in the Astor pile of wealth. And what the Astors own on Manhattan Island and elsewhere combines a greater valuation of landed property than the whole of Delaware.
Next Sunday a jury of prominent real-estate men will estimate the value of the Astor properties and the number of people that live in them for The World.
The prophet says: "Wo unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! In Mine ear said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant." Isa. 5:8, 9.
There are many men in the world to-day who are recklessly disregarding the warning of the foregoing scripture. They continue to "join house to house" and "lay field to field," but make little practical use of this accumulated wealth. Such vast fortunes, so called, are really very unfortunate; for those who possess them are either so perplexed and overworked in caring for them that they never know of the real work and aims of a true life, or else they become so engrossed in luxuriant dissipations that they are wholly given to self in all of its vanities and follies. And this property that might have been a blessing to others is all kept away from them by the greed of a few deluded men.
God has said, "Wo unto them." Will they hear His voice and allow Him to save them from the miseries that await them?
If property is gathered honestly it may be made a great blessing in relieving distress and poverty. But if wealth is gathered by extorting the uttermost penny from the unfortunate and helpless, there must come a reckoning time. If men choose to do that reckoning themselves now, they may avert the "wo" that is pronounced on them by restoring what they have fraudulently or heartlessly extorted from others. But if through unbelief they disregard what God has said, they will find out the literal truth of His Word, but from a standpoint that is the most undesirable.
There are some stormy times around us, but very much stormier ones ahead of us. And the great grasping of wealth by a few men will be the occasion for much of the distress into which the world is plunging. The Word of God plainly points out all these perils, and also what they portend. Have you studied that Word that you may know of these things?
T.
