A party of engineers were studying the country in a Southern state with an eye to a future railroad. Accompanying them was a tired young man of wealth, who had little interest in what they were doing, and who had gone with them in search of possible amusement. He found it. The party discovered an aged family of primitive negroes living in a wretched hovel on the edge of a swamp. The millionaire was struck by the utter desolation of the house and its occupants. It occurred to him that he might find it interesting to aid the darkeys. He parted company with the engineers, and, with a single friend, he gave himself over to bettering the condition of the coloured family. Carpenters appeared from New Orleans. Materials were dragged through the country behind mules. Decorations were shipped from New York. The tottering shack came down and a splendid country bungalow was reared in its place. The interior was furnished with a lavish hand and with a total disregard for expense. White pillars supported the roof. Old-fashioned fireplaces were built into the walls and plate-glass windows were set into the doors. The floors were paved with concrete, and a handsome bath room was fitted up for the amazed and awe-stricken family. When he had finished the home, the young man turned his attention to its inmates. He bought them clothes--such clothes as they had never before dreamed of. He provided them with toilet articles and trifling luxuries, and, before he went away, he supplied the larder with enough food to last a year. That negro family is still the talk of the entire state in which it lives and its members regard what has happened as a manifestation from on high. The young man in search of interesting occupation parted from twenty thousand of his innumerable dollars and probably thinks of the whole affair with satisfaction.
An Italian savant and student has visited America. He has set down his opinions and some of them are interesting. He finds, for instance, that the wife of one of our foremost millionaires wears a necklace that cost more than six hundred thousand dollars. The infant son of this favoured lady reposed, during his tenderer years, in a cradle that was valued at ten thousand dollars and immediately following the birth of the boy--an event that was flashed by telegraph to the furthest corners of the earth--a retinue of servants was formed for the sole benefit of the infant. This corps of retainers consisted of four nurse ladies, four high-priced physicians, who examined the child four times a day, and posted serious bulletins for the information of the clamant press and public.