A PHANTOM FORTUNE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1071, 11 October 1883, Page 2

A PHANTOM FORTUNE.

Mr George Lovegrove is the son of an aged but terribly imaginative old lady who earns a modest livelihood by vending meat pies er similar nutritious delicacies to the inhabitants of Kingston-on-Thames. This venerable female taught her fatherless son to believe from childhood that he was the heir to a vast but mysterious fortune, which would be duly made over to him when he came of age. With this idea Lovegrove, at the age of sixteen, entered the navy, and might at present have been one of the “ bulwarks of England’s greatness,” only he fell in with a cruel captain and deserted. Deserters were then punished with extreme severity if caught, and, despite the prospective fortune, the young man thought it wise to be dead to the world for several years. He ceased writing home, emigrated to the Cape, and after some years got married 1 and went on to New Zealand. Lovegrove settled at Hamilton (Waikato), and there, according to his own account, he not onlj carried oh the trade of glazier with success but was greatly respected. The mystic fortune to which (on the representations of bis mother) he believed himself entitled was, however, constantly in his mind, and it required very little advertising on the part of his astute maternal relative to make him believe that he had merely to come home and help himself to unlimited cash. Lovegrove,' however, was not more precipitate than most men under similar citcumstancea would have been. He wrote to Kingston, and learnt that bis. mother claimed to be residuary legatee to the confiscated Devonshire estates. There was no doubt (is none now, I understand) that the Government would refund a large sum if the kinship were to be proved. The estate descending in tale male, nothing could be done whilst Lovegrove himself was missing; but, having found her son, Mrs Lovegrove, sen., averred she possessed every link to prove the claim save one, and that one (so Lovegrove supposed) was his own natal certificate. The missing link, however, was something vastly more important than the certificate of the claimant’s own birth. That of course Lovegrove was right in thinking could be obtained without difficulty. Mrs Lovegrove, however, really referred to the natal certificate of a remote ancestor, which has for years been advertised for fruitlessly; and, in the opinion of competent judges, has no existence. It was the muddle or misrepresentation about this missing certificate that proved Lovegrove’s ruin. Mrs Lovegrove, sen, baa been backed up in her delusionk re the fortune by a stationer at Kingston; and this worthy wrote .most of the letters to the son. Whether he deliberately misled Lovegrove to believe that the missing certificate was the one of his own* birth, or whether he is a downright fool, and thought so himself, it seems difficult to say. Lovegrove declares the man decoyed him home purposely, with the idea that the two of them might be able to borrow money upon the claim. Before selling up his home and leaving the Waikato, Lovegrove asked the advice of several people, notably Mr Hill and Mr F. A. Whitaker, who strongly advised him to go to England and investigate the matter. He seems to have taken things very coolly, for on board the Orient his fellow passengers chaffed him about hit indifference, which was, however, more apparent than real. Arrived in England the Lovegroves (Mr and Mrs and seven children) were met by the Kingston stationer, who averred that they could “ borrow thousands at any moment,” and led Mrs Lovegrove, jun., into considerable extravagance. Lovegrove himself is a fairly shrewd man, and directly he saw his mother’s documents ha realised that he had come oh a wild-goose chase.