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Show Philadelphia Society is Unique, Organization of Rich Men Formed to Relieve the Distress of OncTime Millionaires Who Have Fallen Upon Evil Times, It Ja curious and, indeed, startling, says the Philadelphia North American, '.to find that right here in this city there has existed for nearly fifty years 'without the knowledge of more than a few persons an association of men de-; de-; voted to a unique and unostentatious well-doing. Public ignorance of their 'enterprise is all the more remarkable ifrom the fact that among these men .are some of the Wealthie6t( most in-jfluential in-jfluential and. best-knoWh" citizens in the community. ' But it is the unusual character of their beneficence that attracts interest. inter-est. All these men are wealthy some beyond the dreams of avarice-- but 'their purpose has. nothing .to. do with the amelioration of the condition of the pauper. On the contrary, there is a society for the rescue of the decayed de-cayed millionaire. They call it the Merchants' Fund association, as-sociation, and the 49th annual meeting was held the other day in a little old room in South Fourth street, away from the clamors of the more pretentious preten-tious virtues. , In a word, the plan of these kindly old gentlemen is to relieve once wealthy companions of their early days, who have since lost their for tunes or in other ways .suffered- the vicissitudes of time which come to so many. - ; , The act of incorporation, dated 1854, says that the object is "to. furnish relief re-lief to indigent merchants of: Philadelphia; Philadel-phia; and especially those who are aged and infirm," and there is. a commentary com-mentary on the ironic whims of circumstance cir-cumstance in the fact that since that time 1300,000 has been paid out in benefits, ben-efits, ir ' ' ' In that first year seven merchants were aided,' while in the", year just past forty-three beneficiaries were on the roll and $10,200 was disbursed. Comparison of these figures might afford af-ford matter for interesting speculation. Is the merchant of to-day more reckless reck-less than he of half a century ago, or is it that the number of merchants has increased, and, therefore, of course, the number of unsuccessful merchants. More than J400.000 is now in the invested in-vested fund of the organization, and it is almost constantly receiving accretions, accre-tions, so that there is plenty left wherewith to provide for the unfortunate unfortu-nate plutocrats of the future, if the supply of unfortunate plutocrats holds out. |