Text 9 Raleigh
If we are right in believing that Sir Walter Raleigh was responsible for introducing the smoking of tobacco into England and also for bringing us our first potatoes, we shall have no difficulty in agreeing that his influence on our present daily life has been and still is very great indeed.
His having brought us these things, however, is only one incident in Raleigh’s life, which was spent in exploring the New World, fighting England’s enemies, giving advice and assistance to the Queen, and trying, unsuccessfully however, to found colonies in Virginia.
According to tradition, Raleigh’s coming under the direct notice of the Queen was due to his having thrown down his cloak to cover a dirty part of the road, over which the Queen had to walk.
James’s becoming King of England after the death of Elizabeth soon made a great change in the life of Raleigh. There were several reasons for his not being liked by the King. Most of these were rather childish, for example: James did not like smoking, so he disliked Raleigh for having brought the tobacco plant to England.
Although the reasons for disliking Raleigh were unimportant in themselves, they became very serious for him. After some time he was put into prison for plotting gainst the King. We have no reason for believing that he really plotted, but the result for him was the same, and he spent the next 12 years of his life in the Tower of London.
Much of this time he spent in writing his ‘History of the World.’ At last, by offering to find some hidden gold in America, he succeeded in getting his liberty and in being allowed to sail across the Atlantic again. Many had heard from the Indians about the hidden gold, but nobody had succeeded in discovering it.
Raleigh’s hopes of finding it were also disappointed, and so he .was obliged to lose either his life or his honour. For, since the beginning of his imprisonment 12 years before, had been under sentence of death, and before sailing he had agreed with James to give the gold on his return or his life.
Now by breaking his word and not returning, he could have saved his life, but he preferred dying with honour to living in dishonour. So he returned without having found the gold, and put his life into the hands of the King.
James of course, could have pardoned him but James was a friend of Raleigh’s bitter enemy, the King of Spain, so, in the hope of pleasing his royal friend, he put his undoubtedly true and loyal subject, Sir Walter, to death in the year 1618.
Text 10 a Tale of Two Millionaires
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Milton Petrie
Every morning billionaire Milton Petrie walked from his New York apartment and bought a newspaper from a ragged old man on the street corner.
One morning the man wasn’t there. Petrie learned that he was very ill and was in the city hospital. Immediately, Petrie went to the hospital and paid for the old man’s medical bills. Later, when the old man died, Petrie also paid for his funeral.
The old man was just one of many people that Milton Petrie helped with his money. Whenever he read about personal disasters in the newspaper, Petrie sent generous checks, especially to the families of police officers or fire fighters injured at work. He also sent checks to a mother who lost five children in a fire, and a beautiful model, whose face was cut in a knife attack.
It cost him millions of dollars, but he still had millions left. He said that he was lucky in business and he wanted to help those less fortunate than himself. “The nice thing is, the harder I work, the more money I can make, and the more people I can help.”
Milton Petrie died in 1994 when he was 92. His will was 120 pages long because he left $150 million to 383 people. His widow, Carroll, his fourth and last wife, said his generosity was a result of the poverty of his early years. His family was poor but kind-hearted. His father was a Russian immigrant who became a police officer, but he never arrested anyone because he was too kind. He couldn’t even give out a parking ticket.
Hetty Green
Henrietta (Hetty) Green was a very spoiled only child. She was born in Massachusetts in 1835. Her father was a millionaire businessman. Her mother was often ill, so from the age of two, her father took her with him to work and taught her about stocks and bonds. At the age of six, she started reading the daily financial newspapers and she opened her own bank account.
Her father died when she was 21, and she inherited $7.5 million. She went to New York and invested on Wall Street. Hetty saved every penny, even eating diner in the cheapest restaurants she could find. She became one of the richest and most hated women in the world. She was called “The Witch of Wall Street.” At 33, she married Edward Green, a multi-millionaire, and had two children, Ned and Sylvia.
Hetty’s stinginess was legendary. She always argued about prices in stores. She walked to the local grocery store to buy broken cookies that were much cheaper, and to get a free bone for her much loved dog, Dewey. Once she lost a two-cent stamp and spent the whole night looking for it. She hardly ever bought new clothes and often wore the same long ragged black skirt.
Worst of all, when her son, Ned, fell and injured his knee, she refused to pay for a doctor and spent hours looking for free medical help. In the end Ned’s leg was amputated. When she died in 1916 she left her children $100 million (worth $9.3 billion today). Her daughter built a hospital with her money.