native land the Irishman loves more to spend money than earn it. Sir Thomas Dargan, the great railway contractor, was, however, one of those exceptions which teach us how, even in his native land, the poorest Irishman may amass a fortune. Young Dargan received a good education, and after leaving school was placed in a surveyor’s office. With little beyond this training, and a character for the strictest integrity, he left Ireland to push his fortunes. His first employment was under Telford, who was then engaged in constructing the Holyhead Road. When this was completed Dargan returned to Ireland, and embarked in several minor undertakings, in which he was fortunate enough to gain sufficient to form the nucleus of that princely fortune which entitled him to the appellation of a millionaire. After the highly successful result of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Mr. Dargan, with the view of developing the industrial resources of his native country, and with a munificence certainly without parallel in one who had been “the architect of his own fortune,” resolved on founding an Industrial Exhibition in Dublin, and placed £20,000 in the hands of a committee, consisting of the leading citizens, and empowered them to erect a building, and to defray all the necessary expenses connected with the undertaking, on the sole condition that no begging-box should be handed found for further contributions. He undertook, moreover, to advance whatever additional sums might be required to carry the enterprise to a successful issue. In fact, before the Exhibition opened (May 12, 1853), Mr. Dargan’s advances are said not to have fallen far short of £100,000. CHAPTER IV. A FORTUNE MADE BY A VEGETARIAN. PERHAPS one of the most remarkable cases of success in life is the following, as described by Mr. Napier, of Merchiston, in a paper in “Fraser’s Magazine.” He says:— “After the reading of my paper on the vegetarian core for intemperance, before the Bristol Meeting of the British Association in 1875, I was addressed by an elderly gentleman and his wife, who said my views were strictly in accordance with theirs. After some conversation, we adjourned to his hotel, where he hospitably entertained me, and gave me a narrative of his life, with permission to publish it in the interest of the good cause, suppressing his name and abode, as he said he was particularly shy and retired in his habits, and had a great objection to see his name in print.