Sunbury American

The Vanity of Riches is seldom illustrated so strikingly as in the case of the great English millionaire, Morrison who died worth £2,000,000. It seems to be one of the conditions of the accumulation of enormous wealth in a single generation that the possessor shall first disqualify himself from enjoying it, and in some cases even from appreciating the fact that he holds it. Mr. Morrison accumulated this almost fabulous amount himself and in the regular course of his business with it and extraordinary turn of fortune; yet the following extract from a letter in the Boston Post shows how little benefit he permitted himself to receive from all his wealth. What a satire it is upon the exclusive devotion of all the faculties to the mere accumulation of property:

"Mr. Morrison retired from active business several years since without withdrawing his capital from the mercantile house and though managing his vast funds himself up to the time of his death with all the sagacity of earlier days, he has for the last three years been possessed with the idea that he should come to want. More than two years ago he commenced doing day labor upon a farm held by one of his tenants, for which he received twelve shillings a week, and this he continued up to the time of his illness. For the last eighteen months he has been a regular applicant for relief to the parish, assembled twice a week with the town paupers at the door of the Union, and receiving with each one of them his two shillings and a quarter loaf. His friends have indulged him in these fancies on the ground that it was the best choice of two evils. The truth is that money was his god and the idea became at last too great for him and broke him down.' And yet he is said to have made a most judicious will and his investments up to the last are characterized by great good sense. The probate duty on his will exceeds £100,000."