Two persons who, if not exactly eminent, are well-known to
the public, have disappeared this week. The first is M. Mon Say, the French Senator, political economist, and statesman. M. Say was, as a clear thinker, a master of State finance, and a convinced Moderate, a considerable Conservative force in France, but he was more useful in debate than as a governing man. He died on Tuesday, and in him this country lost an intelligent and unswerving friend. The second is Baron Hirsch, the Austrian millionaire, who died on the same day so suddenly as to arouse the suspicions of the police, suspicions, however, resting on no evidence. Baron Hirsch was a man of Jewish extraction who was greatly devoted to his people, though not, it is reported, to their creed. A man of great energy who inherited considerable wealth, he made a vast fortune as conceseionnaire of the Balkan railways, and on the death of his only son devoted himself and his means to two objects,—the benefit of his race and getting on in society. He lent money and gave money to all the Princes he could get at, kept up vast establishments in four countries, Hungary, Austria, France, and England, and gave money for poor Russian, Galician, Roumanian, and French Jews after a magnificent fashion. He is believed to have spent three millions on his project for settling the Russian Jews in Argentina, and this was only one of his many benefactions. He had probably at one time nearly twenty millions sterling, and of the vast remains of that fortune much, it is expected, will be devoted to charity, a nephew whom he had adopted being, however, his heir-general.
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