It was the most industrial of all the cities in the world and the richest.
Its organisation seemed perfect.

None of the ancient aristocratic or democratic forms remained; everything was subordinated to the interests of the trusts.

This environment gave rise to what anthropologists called the multi-millionaire type.

The men of this type were at once energetic and frail, capable of great activity in forming mental combinations and of prolonged labour in offices, but men whose nervous irritability suffered from hereditary troubles which increased as time went on.
Like all true aristocrats, like the patricians of republican Rome or the squires of old England, these powerful men affected a great severity in their habits and customs.

They were the ascetics of wealth.