IN 1890, in an article in the Forum, Mr. Henry G. Shearman, a leading lawyer in New York City, made the prediction that this country would produce a billionaire inside of forty years. There were several large estates at that time, any one of which Mr. Shearman calculated would grow into a billion in four decades by means of the most ordinary accumulations. The great capitalist usually increases his fortune by putting his money at interest at low rates, but on the best of securities. Or he will invest in stocks or bonds, and usually the rate of increase on these is also very low. But when a hundred million or more is invested in this way, even tho the rate of increase is low, yet it makes a large annual income, since the amount is so great on which the per cent of increase is reckoned. When Mr. Shearman, in 1890, thought the billionaire would arrive inside of forty years, nearly one-fourth of which is now in the past, he did not make allowance for any successful speculations on a gigantic scale—speculations which in a single day would roll up millions multiplied by millions. He simply figured that if some of the large fortunes of 1890 were kept securely invested at as low a rate of interest as four per cent., together with the income of each recurring year, only forty years would be necessary to make the billionaire. But there are one or two fortunes that are increasing at so rapid a rate that the billionaire can not be more than eight or ten years in the future, provided that revolutions of some kind do not arise to break it up. There is one fortune now estimated at $320,000,000 that eight years ago was not quite $200,000,000. Thus in less than one decade over $120,000,000 is added to this vast estate. And now that large sum that has been accumulated during the last ten years is also earning more money, and it is easy to be seen that it will not take eight years more to make the next $120,000,000, even if circumstances were no more favorable than during the eight years just past. But laws and judicial decisions favoring the overgrown capitalist are making his road more smooth all the time, and his accumulations are being continually accelerated. The billionaire is almost here. In past generations such vast accumulations of wealth were hardly considered within the dreamy realm of fable, but they are actual realities to-day. Did not it ever occur to you that there is a woful significance in all this? T.