the big battalions." It is a fact, and every man who is born has to die. Let us grant it. Then let us glance at some of the things which we are told wealth cannot buy. We have all seen, in print, the statement-I only saw it again in a pretty well-known publication last week-that wealth cannot buy us fame, honour, distinction, so-called "immortality." It is quite a copy-book axiom that men have to earn these things, to deserve them. That is true enough, in a sense. A man has to earn and deserve them in the sense in which he has to earn and deserve a 'bus-drive from Charing Cross to Liverpool Street, by paying a penny. The conductor does not ask him how he earned and deserved the penny-not he. It has always seemed to me that if there is one thing beyond all others which wealth can purchase, it is "the bubble reputation.' Consider the variety of ways in which that particular article can be purchased. There has been some outcry lately because of the indisputable fact that titles are so seldom bestowed upon men of letters. We have been informed that a title is a country's crown of honour, its badge of merit, not only in theory but in practice; that it is the mark of distinction which an approving sovereign and an admiring people place upon the individual who has well done-no matter what. Let us not dispute it, ill-doers that we are, being paupers, but let us notice that no man ever earned a title who was not rich enough. The higher the title, the greater the wealth. When it becomes a question of bestowing a title in the case of a really poor man it never does become a question; we are much too sensiblethen the bigger the man's fortune, the bigger the title he receives. A thousand pound a year man might be made a knight, but it is only the billionaires who deserve to be dukes. It is notorious that some men become so rich, that a grateful nation feels compelled, because of their wealth, to make them peers. A peer, with a large, healthy, and increasing family, would appear to have as much chance of "immortalising" his name as any average man. But there are other roads to "immortality" open to wealth besides the peerage. A rich man can found hospitals, schools, orphanages, homes, asylums, and that sort of thing. He can build churches or cathedrals, literary institutes, or even picture galleries; or he can "go in" for "model dwellings” or for or for "people's parks." There are thousands of things which a rich man can build and stick his name upon-a name which, in the finite sense, will never be forgotten either. Look at the "foundations" which rich men did found-ah, centuries ago. We know who founded them to this hour, especially if we enquire. The man who paints the pictures will live no longer than the man who buys them all and builds a gallery of many coloured marbles and of beautiful design in which to hang them. What grander immortality could there be than that which lies within the reach of the man of fabulous wealth who resolves to devote it all to the furtherance of some great object? The great object need not necessarily be a good object-quite the other way. We differ so much in our opinions of what is good. But if some half-dozen of the richest men now living were deliberately to resolve to devote their all to raising for themselves shrines of immortality, what temples they might raise. The pyramids would not be in it, and they are immortal. Their builder made a huge mistake, one which our rich men never could be guilty of. He forgot to stamp his name on every stone. Our rich men, and surely, before and beyond all others, the American "giants of finance," would be exceedingly careful to see that their names were cut in indelible letters on every square inch of every stone which the builder laid. Moreover, their statues would crown the summit, and portrait models of themselves and their relations would be placed wherever they could find a spot just handy. This is not accounted to them as a crime. It is merely stated as a fact. There are other roads to immortality which the man who is the possessor of great wealth can, if he chooses, make royal roads. He must be an unusually dull-witted person if he cannot make his mark in contemporary politics. The rôle of patron of art, literature, and science is not by any means played out. millionaire wrote a book, it would at least run into many editions. It is not improbable that in future ages it would continue to be regarded with reverence, at any rate by bibliomaniacs. If he painted a picture, it would certainly make a better bid for If a public favour than, say, the canvases of the persevering Smudge, whose residence is a top attic in Newman Street. If he wrote a play or composed an opera, either work would be given to the world in the best possible style and without the least delay. Moreover, it is even betting that, good, bad, or indifferent, it would pay for production. The longer you consider the clearer you will perceive that the very rich man, the millionaire, has, to put it mildly, an infinitely better chance of procuring fame, distinction, honour, "immortality," than either I who write or you who read. I am supposing that you are not one of those unhappy beings-vide the "interviews." I know that I am not, Then the rich man has another advantage -an immeasureable advantage, one of which he himself appears at times to have but a faint appreciation-he can be honest, if he chooses! Dishonesty, with him, is a question of taste, not of absolute necessity. Becky Sharpe was not satirical, she was simply truthful when she said that any one could be honest with five thousand a year. When I hear, as I heard not long ago, of a tramp being sent to prison by a bench of wealthy country gentlemen because he slept under a hayrick and dared to cover himself with the hay, on a winter's night when the thermometer was several degrees below freezing point, I wish that the prayers of the unrighteous might prevail, because then I would pray that those wealthy country gentlemen might be able to realise that tramp's position. I have before me a report of some comments which the Recorder of Liverpool made upon the case of a manthe man was then before him-who had been sentenced, at various times, to terms of penal servitude amounting, in the aggregate, to forty-one years. This man, let it be well understood, was a thief, a pestilent thief, what the police call an "habitual" thief. The thefts of which he had been found guilty, and for which he had been sentenced to forty-one years' penal servitude, all being added together, were less than the value of a five-pound note. That is to say, for less than five pounds he had been doomed to a life's imprisonment. I protest that, as I read it I hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. served the fellow right? That he should have robbed upon a bigger scale? Unfortunately, that is what the people who in one place call themselves Anarchists, in another, Socialists, in another Communists, in still another Nihilists-that is the principle they are advocating, robbery upon a bigger scale! Then there are other forms of honesty which, to the rich man, come as matters of course. He can afford to have his own opinions, and he has them. There are Liberals who write for Tory papers, and Tories who scribble for Liberal papers, or has one only dreamt such things? They write the thing which they believe is not, because they are afraid-with cause-that if they did not write it they might starve. There are men-honest gentlemen-who would, and do, write anything, so that they may keep themselves, and their wives, and their children alive. There are preachers who preach what they deem heresy, lest the pew-rents should decline. There are artists who, deliberately and of malice prepense, lower their art to keep the brokers from the house; and there are doctors who make of the gifts of healing a laughing-stock and a derision in pursuit of a practice. The millionaire should have no difficulty in being able to feel that he is not as these men are. Then there are the social dishonesties the millionaire need know nothing of them. He need know nothing of the miserable frauds which are inevitable in the struggle to keep up what are called "appearances." He can sit apart and despise the sorry, dirt-stained fools, and.he need never attempt to realise that in the poor ambition which made them struggle there might possibly have been something noble. He need never know what it means to try to live at the rate of five hundred a year when you have only four. The life of a Wilkins Micawber is a sealed book to him. Above all, the punishment, the ignominy, and the shame which overtakes the man, and, still more, the woman, who endeavours to enjoy the sweets of life, when he or she can only afford to enjoy its bitters--he need know nothing of that. There are, the good books tell us-I am not sure that political economists do not tell us, too-pre-eminently three things which money cannot buy. When I was a What will the rich man-the millionaire child I believed it. How the world has who gets nothing out of his wealth-lied, and how it still is lying to the chilsay to such a case as this? Such cases dren! Now that I am a man I know it is are not infrequent. Will he say that it not true. They tell us that not all the gold that ever came out of all the gold- sions, are becoming overcrowded with mines will ever buy love, health, and young girls and full grown women. happiness. Let us see if this is so. Let Why? One great reason is because they us see, that is, if money will not buy us are not provided with sufficient marriage love, health, and happiness. And, first of dowers, and men cannot afford to marry all, as to love. them without. The chief difficulty is not the insufficiency of men, the chief difficulty is the insufficiency of wealth. Provide all men, and provide all women, with a sufficiency of means, and the social problem will fade to a vanishing-point to-morrow. What kind of love are we to speak of Is it the love of a parent for a child, or of a child for a parent? The love of a brother for a brother, or of a sister for a sister? Of a friend for a friend? Or of married folk for each other? Consider one point. Think of the many men who have gone to their graves bachelors because they could not afford to marry; or who have waited years and years till their manhood has passed its prime and the joy has gone out of their lives, and even then scarcely dared to venture. Marriage has become a somewhat expensive luxury. Men feel, with Bacon, that he who takes unto himself a wife "gives hostages to fortune." Rightly or wrongly they think it better to first get the means, feeling that when they have got the means there will be no difficulty about the wife. This is out of the books, you understand. Again, in the love of married folk for each other, the great factor is a sufficiency of coin. Novelists may not believe it, but the romance of marriage only begins when the bailiffs cease knocking at the door. The man who has exhausted every legitimate means within the range of his power to obtain cash, and who now meditates a raid upon a baker's barrow, is not an object calculated to inspire either affection or respect. As for "genteel" poverty, it either means a slow agony of starvation -mental, moral, and physical-or else it means county court summonses and unending petty frauds. If any one supposes that that is the school in which to cultivate matrimonial affection he is mistaken. What On the other hand, has not the rich a frequent figure is the wife who despises man only himself to blame if he fails to the husband because of the lies she has to win a woman's love, and to wear it next tell for him, and the husband who is his heart, at once, without any waiting, conscious of a feeling of slight bitterness and to keep it to the end? Drop down, towards his better half because of the having five, ten, fifteen thousand a year-objections she makes when the bailiffs not to speak of the millionaires-where are, once more, either threatening or you will, in some country hamlet, or in actually "in!" some great town, meet Wordsworth's "perfect woman, nobly planned"; behave to her with fitting generosity, open to her your money-bags as well as your heart, and what are the odds that she is not your wife well within six months? Yes, and it will be your own fault if she is not a true and loving wife to you until the Reaper moves his scytho, and one of you is taken and the other is left. I will not dwell upon the obviously mercenary marriages, the marriage of seventy with seventeen, of the shattered constitution with the fresh young life, of the battered roué with the maiden who is still standing where the two streams meet. It is enough to note that the truest love matches-so-called-are those in which, on one side or the other, there is money. This, also, is not in the books, but it is in real life. The absence of money presses harder on the woman than the man. Our factories, our workshops, all trades and all profes Notice-ye who say that love cannot be bought-what a change takes place when the sun of prosperity begins once more to shine upon the struggling family; how love revivea again; how Mr. Jones begins again to be regarded as a husband and a man; how Mrs. Jones makes much of him; she steals, half-shamefacedly, into his arms, she nestles her head upon his shoulder, he is, to her, once more, the Henry of the "golden days." It is not humbug on the part of Mrs. Jones, it is human nature, it is an exemplification of the purchasing power of wealth. Do not run away with the impression that Mr. Jones has done some deed of derring-do, fought in a deathless fight and conquered; he has simply "landed" the first prize in the Hamburg lotteries, or "spotted" the winner in Capel Court or at Epsom. He has got money, and whether we own it or not, money is the god of our adoration, and rightly, too, for, from the cradle to the grave, money brings to us, and money only, the glory and the joy of life. Let us hasten on to the statement that health cannot be bought with money. Has any one of the people who tell us this ever seen that striking spectacle, a train full of valetudinarians rushing South to escape the terrors of an English winter? I wonder! At certain seasons, these trains are running every day, and all day long. They are full, for the most part, with men and women who are buying, not only health, but in some cases life-actual life. They could not live, some of them, through a London winter; and as for working in it, Heaven help them all! Go to Madeira, to Teneriffe, go farther afield than that, to all the sanatoriums of the world, to the South Sea Islands if you will, go to a little place among the mountains, Davos Platz. You will find in these places crowds of people who are apparently in the enjoyment of robust health -because they can afford to buy it. fluenza epidemic a laundress - I must apologise for the vulgarity of my instances I say a laundress contracted the fashionable complaint. She was my own laundress, you understand. She was a widow, and she had five small children, and there was the week's washing to do. So she got out of bed and she did it, and pneumonia ensued. So she died. If the names of the people of whom that laundress was but a type-who could and who would have bought health if they had the money with which to buy it; who would even have bought for themselves long life-were written on the skies, the space allotted would hardly be found large enough to hold them. And now for a word with those who tell us that wealth will not buy happiness. My gentle reader, what is happiness? You cannot tell Ah! nor can I. But if happiness is the concomitant of an unstained conscience and the natural attribute of a righteous life well lived to the end, then I, for one, see no reason why a purchase it. He, at any rate, is not forced to sin, while poor people-although the assertion may be contrary to the rulings of the high priests and Pharisees, whose own pockets are, as a rule, well lined—not seldom are. You can not only buy health-by which I mean good spirits instead of bad, enjoy-man with millions should not be able to ment instead of misery, pleasure instead of pain-but you can buy life. I heard of & case the other day of a young woman who died in child bed. She was a labourer's wife, and she lived at a distance of several miles from the nearest doctor. They sent for the doctor; he wanted his fee in advance. They had not his fee; so the doctor did not go; and the woman died. Of course that was all right. It was the doctor's business in life to keep his head above the water; and if the woman could not afford to pay for life at the current market rates, she had to do without it. Think of the men who are gradually or rapidly going blind because they cannot afford to rest their eyes. In how many trades and occupations is that going on? They have not the money with which to buy their eyesight, that is the plain English of the thing. Think of the people who are contracting diseases, in some cases incurable diseases, because, although they have health, they have not the money with which to buy the right to keep it. Do you know none of these people? Your experience of life has been a narrow one. The name of these folk is legion. Think of the people who have risen from a sick-bed, uncured, only to fall back again and die. Why Merely because to continue sick was to starve; so that it was a case of dying anyhow. During the recent in Consider the man who has never earned more than thirteen shillings a week in his life, and then consider the millionaire. Which man has, on the face of it, the most chance of happiness-happiness of any and every kind? Is not the enquiry too preposterous? But then, you see, people are only just beginning to awake to the fact that there are vast hordes of so-called human beings who never have known, and who never will know, what it is to enjoy a moment's happiness from the cradle to the grave. Why? Because the money never comes their way with which to buy it. You will find these people in Eastern countries, where a poor man's life is frankly regarded as nothing, and less than nothing. You will find them in England here, at your doors. You will find them in Russia, where, we are given to understand, they have liberty to starve. You will find them all over the continent of Europe. I do not doubt that there are one or two in the Australian continent. And many of us have seen them with our own eyes in the United States, that land of dollars. Happiness is not to be had without money, for this very simple reason: there is no happiness where there is no peace of mind, and there is no peace of mind-out of the story-books and the lunatic asylums -where there is no money. It is possible -if you like, it is probable-that a man can be happy who has a certain three hundred a year. But, if he is a man, and prolonged poverty has not made of him something akin to a brute-if that three hundred becomes three thousand he will find that his field of happiness widens; there will be more room to move about in it. If that three thousand becomes thirty thousand, he will find that it grows still wider. If more money does not mean more happiness, why do these millionaires stick to the shekels from which they say they derive no pleasure? The poor man is always willing to give up his poverty. No, O millionaire, if the possession of wealth does not bring you happiness, it is your own fault; and, as some people are beginning to proclaim that if the pauper does not know happiness, that also is your fault, if you are not pretty spry, it looks as if you would have to bear that burden too. The pity of it all-for nothing! MĚNGÂMOK. "HE is after me," is a much more serious thing than the now popular song implies. There is nothing at all amusing about it when "he" is a sturdy Malay running amok, kriss in hand. Such was my experience, and the words of the song very vividly recall the event to my mind. Many a truth is said in jest, and many a frivolous thing recalls a grave event. So it is in this instance, as my narrative will show. At the time I was residing in the very heart of that portion of the world where the fanaticism of "amok" is most rife. The events I am about to relate took place in British North Borneo, in the capital, Sandakau. Amok, amuck (or, more correctly, in Malay, měngâmok), means "to slaughter indiscriminately," and the Malay who runs amok carries out the foregoing definition to a nicety. No one is safe, man, woman, or child, and the cry of "oran amok, oran amok," is the most startling and appalling that can well be imagined. Then and there is hurrying to and fro, women catching up their children in hot haste, men scampering here and there, the slamming to of doors, mothers acreaming to children they cannot find, the occasional report of a gun, the despairing yell of some fresh victim, and ever-increasing cries of the crowd in pursuit, until the whole place is ringing with the shouts of "oran amok." Living where I did, the wonder is I saw so few cases, for running amok is a much commoner occurrence than people residing in these latitudes have any idea of. Probably a great number have no idea what amok is. It is a religious fanaticism, a madness, under which a man makes up his mind to kill any one he can, until he himself is killed. Brought on by drink, rage, or religion, or from whatever cause, The madman the process is the same. seizes his kriss and rushes headlong down the street, cutting at every one he meets. To any one who has seen a kriss or a parang further detail is unnecessary. A man running amok is as a dog with hydrophobia loose, but the panic caused by the former is by far the worse. Like the mad dog, the mad man is followed by a noisy rabble, who, sooner or later, run into their man and exterminate him. When this vengeful rabble is made up of bloodthirsty Malays and Chinamen, its wild rage and fury is beyond control, beyond description. The clamour and blood-curdling yells of the pursuing crowd, and the ever-nearing shout of "oran amok, oran amok," is an incident which can never be forgotten by any one who has seen or heard it. The bravest quails when suddenly turning the corner of a street his ears are greeted with the ory of "oran amok," and a few yards off he sees a Malay running straight at him, brandishing in his hand the bloody kriss with which he has already slaughtered all in his way. His hair flowing behind him, his sarong thrown away or torn off in a struggle, his naked chest reeking with blood, his eyes protruding from his head and twice their natural size, coming towards you with the rapidity of a deer, every muscle in his herculean little body swollen to its greatest tension, his kriss dripping with blood, his eyes upon you, with dire hate and determination gleaming from them, down he comes upon you, the whole place ringing with the cry of the ever-increasing and avenging crowd behind him, down upon you comes the "oran amok! oran amok!" Yes, the bravest heart quails then. It |