with such wealth as he was privileged to ignore the formulas of
punctilious society. In this slovenly, stoop-shouldered man with his
cold, abstracted air no one would have detected the richest man in
America.

Acquisitiveness was his most marked characteristic. Even before his
father's death he had amassed a fortune of his own by land speculations
and banking connections, and he had inherited $500,000 from his uncle
Henry, a butcher on the Bowery. It was said in 1846 that he possessed an
individual fortune of $5,000,000. During the last years of his father he
had been president of the American Fur Co., and he otherwise knew every
detail of his father's multifarious interests and possessions.

WILLIAM B. ASTOR'S PARSIMONY.

He lived in what was considered a fine mansion on Lafayette place,
adjoining the Astor Library. The sideboards were heaped with gold plate,
and polyglot servants in livery stood obediently by at all times to
respond to his merest nod. But he cared little for this show, except in
that it surrounded him with an atmosphere of power. His frugality did
not arise from wise self-control, but from his parsimonious habits. He
scanned and revised the smallest item of expense. Wine he seldom
touched, and the average merchant spent more for his wardrobe than he
did. At a time when the rich despised walking and rode in carriages
drawn by fast horses, he walked to and from his business errands. This
severe economy he not only practiced in his own house, but he carried it
into every detail of his business. Arising early in the morning, he
attended to his private correspondence before breakfast. This meal was
served punctually at 9 o'clock. Then he would stride to his office on
Prince street. A contemporary writer says of him:

He knew every inch of real estate that stood in his name, every
bond, contract and lease. He knew what was due when leases
expired, and attended personally to the matter. No tenants could
expend a dollar, or put in a pane of glass without his personal
inspection. His father sold him the Astor House [an hotel] for the
sum of one dollar. The lessees were not allowed to spend one cent
on the building, without his supervision and consent, unless they
paid for it themselves.

In the upper part of New York hundreds of lots can be seen
enclosed by dilapidated fences, disfigured by rocks and waste
material, or occupied as [truck] gardens. T