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TH. His fortune was the colossus of the times; an object of awe to all wealth-strivers. Necessary as manufactures were in the social and industrial system, they, as yet, occupied a strikingly subordinate and inferior position as an agency in accumulating great fortunes. Statistics issued in 1844 of manufactures in the United States showed a total gross amount of $307,196,844 invested. Astor's wealth, then, was one-fifteenth of the whole amount invested throughout the territory of the United States in cotton and wool, leather, flax and iron, glass, sugar, furniture, hats, silks, ships, paper, soap, candles, wagons--in every kind of goods which the demands of civilization made indispensable. The last years of this magnate were passed in an atmosphere of luxury, laudation and power. On Broadway, by Prince street, he built a pretentious mansion, and adorned it with works of art which were more costly than artistic. Of medium height, he was still quite stout, but his once full, heavy face and his deep set eyes began to sag from the encroachments of extreme advanced age. He could be seen every weekday poring over business reports at his office on Prince street--a one-story, fireproof brick building, the windows of which were guarded by heavy iron bars. The closing weeks of his life were passed at his country seat at Eighty-eighth street and the East River. Infirm and debilitated, so weak and worn that he was forced to get his nourishment like an infant at a woman's breast, and to have exercise administered by being tossed in a blanket, he yet retained his faculty of vigilantly scrutinizing every arrear on the part of tenants, and he compelled his agent to render daily accounts. Parton relates this story: One morning this gentleman [the agent] chanced to enter his room while he was enjoying his blanket exercise. The old man cried out from the middle of his blanket: "Has Mrs. ---- paid that rent yet?" "No," replied the agent. "Well, but she must pay it," said the poor old man. "Mr. Astor," rejoined the agent, "she can't pay it now; she has had misfortunes, and we must give her time." "No, no," said Astor; "I tell you she can pay it and she will pay it. You don't go the right way to work with her." The agent took leave, and mentioned the anxiety of the old gentleman with regard to this unpaid rent to his son, who counted out the requisite sum, a
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