In the business world of New York City, half a century ago, no name was more prominent than that of A. T. Stewart, whose success as a merchant was one of the most astonishing features of the time. Born near Belfast, Ireland, in 1803, Stewart was a descendant from one of those hardy and thrifty Scotch-Irish, whom we have had occasion to mention before. His father was a farmer, but died while the son was still at school, and at the age of twenty the latter came to New York, and after looking over the field, opened a small store on lower Broadway, with a sleeping apartment for himself in the rear. Such was the beginning of the greatest dry-goods business this country ever saw. It increased by leaps and bounds, for Stewart seems to have had a sort of instinctive genius for the business. He was continually moving to larger and larger quarters, and in 1862, built on Broadway a store which was at that time the largest in the world, and which, even in this day of mammoth structures, commands attention. Its cost was nearly three millions, a colossal sum for those days; two thousand people were employed in it and it cost a million a year to run. But it brought a tremendous return, and its owner soon became one of the wealthiest men in New York. He wanted more than wealth--he hungered for political and social honors which were never fully his. He had made a large contribution to the fund of $100,000 presented by the merchants of New York to General Grant, and in 1869, Grant appointed him secretary of the treasury. The senate refused to confirm the appointment, on the ground that the law excluded from that office anyone interested in the importation of merchandise. Grant sent to the senate a message recommending that this law be repealed, but the senate refused; and Stewart thereupon offered to place his business in the hands of trustees and devote its entire profits to charity during his term of office; but still the senate refused, and the nomination was withdrawn. It was a bitter blow to Stewart, nor was his fight for social prominence much more fortunate. As his last stake, as it were, he began the erection of a great marble palace on Fifth Avenue, designed to cost a million and to be the finest private residence in the world, but he died before it was completed. * * * * *