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Show , Richest Man in the World. Very few Californians know, perhaps, that Alfred Al-fred Beit, "the only billionaire in the world," who is reported to be dying in South Africa, has part of his universal grip on our mother lode up in Mariposa county. Such is the fact, however, and Herman Bonn, his representative, told me a lot about this unique personage the other day. Beit may not be a billionaire, he explained, because fortunes in such bulk are almost impossible to calculate cal-culate with exactness, but he is certainly the richest rich-est man in the world and that means the richest man in history. His Mariposa holdings, although they are rich, are among the smallest pennies in his pocket. He owns a very large share of the biggest gold mines in South Africa, besides gold and silver mines in Siberia, Korea and Soutn America, a big interest in the Anaconda mine and controlling interests in electric railway systems in South Africa, Mexico, Chile and Portugal, big copper interests also in Rhodesia. He is the biggest big-gest owner of damonds and diamond mines in the world. Since tne death of Cecil Rhodes he is practically the whole De Beers company. In t 1895 he had only a part of these vast holdi. J even then he was accounted one of the richest 1 men in the world. At that time the Boer war came along and sent his fortune jumping by the millions. He studied that situation from a speculator's spec-ulator's standpoint, and all of the men in the world he was in the best position to take advantage advant-age of it. Known as "The Silent Man." To look at Beit with his soft blonde hair, mild gray eyes and gentle appearance, one would never suspect that he had the brain capacity, the resourcefulness re-sourcefulness and thejtphysical force to win even an entrance tofthe great contests where he shines so conspicuously. His small frame of medium stature makes him appear almost insignificant. This impression is increased by his shy and diffident dif-fident manner. Among his associates he is known as a silent man, for he won't talk unless it is absolutely necessary. ie carries his fifty years well. His great fad is art. His picture gallery in his London residence is ranked as one of the very best private collections in the world and the collection of Louis Seize furniture with which the house is appointed is conceded to be unequaled. His Aladdin-Like Career. As in the case of his remarkable partners, Rhodes and Barnato, the fate that led Beit to I Africa reads like a paragraph from the Arabian i Nights. He was about twenty-two years old at i the time and was holding down an office stool in 1 tlie small store of his father, who was struggling J to build up a trade in mining machinery with 1 South Africa. One day the toe of a naked Hot- I tentot kicked up a shining pebble on a desolate i field in Griqualand. It was the first diamond found on what afterwards proved to be the richest and biggest diamond fields in the world. A little while after this event young Beit was pulled off his stool by his father and despatched to Griqualand Griqua-land to poke up such mines as were delinquent in paying their bills for machinery. Like the rest of the procession going that way in 1875 he trekked behind an ox team into Kimberly. But he was B,n astute lad and he quickly realized that out of the chaotic conditions in mining then existing exist-ing great returns were to be had. Diamonds were thrown on the market hap-hazard by the reckless miners and prices quickly tumbled. Beit saw that the glutted market must be properly handled. Rhodes came along about the same time and worked on the same scheme. Both men were business rivals for years but in the day of the great combinations they went intogether on the big De Beers company, with its forty million dollars dol-lars capital, paying six million dollars in annual dividends, besides princely salaries. That great consolidation was in fact the beginning of the vast fortunes of Beit, Rhodes and Barnato. Once those fortunes were assured they began to drift apart, each one following his singular career. Bar-nato's Bar-nato's led to suicide from the deck of an ocean steamer; Rhodes began to crystallize his dreams of empire-building and started the Boer war, and Beit, being a business man purely, went determinedly deter-minedly on piling up his colossal fortune. Of all the astonishing things that fecund South Africa has furnished this world, not the least is the trio of remarkable characters, Barney Barnato, the speculator; Cecil Rhodes, the empire-builder, and Alfred Beit, the fortune-builder. lown Talk. |