AN EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMANT.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1846, 22 January 1880, Page 3

AN EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMANT.

Tho Master of the Bolls in Dublin has had to deal with an extraordinary claim. It was an application on the part of Mr Oharlee Malone, barrister, to have an account taken of the assets of the late Michael Reilly, of Orosserlough, in the County Cavan, which had passed into the hands of the late James Brady, the proprietor of a public-house in Stephen's Green, Dublin, whoße widow was Bued as administratrix. Tho plaintiff told a curious story. Reilly had been a soldier, and served in India, where he amaßsed a considerable sum of money. On his return in 1845 he showed the plaintiff, who ia a nephew, four large chests, one of which was opened, and was found to contain sovereigns. He counted £IOOO, and that was only about one-fourth of the whole sum. Reilly told him he had obtained it by looting various citieß which were given up to pillage, a statement which, as the Master of the_ Holla observed, might have been only a soldier's boast, or might have been perfectly true ; and he told the plaintiff that he would remember him ia his will. Reilly then went home to the county Oavan to reside, and as to what becntno of the money there was no evidence. The plaintiff attempted to trace it, or part of it, to the defendant's late husband, but the Judge believed there was not a shred of evidence to sustain the statement. The plaintiff's claim rested on his own affidavit, and he was a gentleman incapable of stating anything untrue. His grounds of belief were that Brady, the deceased, was believed to be in poor circumstances, but that on a oertain day he bought a large quantity of whisky ; that he stated he expected to be enriched by an uncle, and that on a subsequent day he said he had obtained what he wished. It waß proved that Brady's father, who _ was married to Reilly'a sister, was seen driving about Dublin in a car with a carpet bag, which, it was suggested, contained a portion of the money. The plaintiff also stated that for twenty years, from 1850 to 1870, he had no intercourse with Brady, but that he then began to call upon him at his publichouse, in Stephen's-green, and that on several occasions Brady admitted to him that he had obtained Reilly's money from his father. When he complained, however, that he had not himself received any share of it, Brady told him he only got £SOO. The learned Judge observed that if the admissions had been ten times more preciso, when the effect of them was to put money in the hands of another person, and tho man who made them was dead and there was nc corroboration, the Court must have rejected the_ewdence. The lapse of time also, from 1850 to 1370, during which nothing was done to bring forward the claim, was unaccounted for. The claim, therefore, had failed, and the action must be dismissed with oosts."