A HERMIT OF THE SEA

Hokitika Guardian, 8 February 1929, Page 8

A HERMIT OF THE SEA

THE HOUSTON MILLIONS. Two years ago Sit Robert Houston, the great shipowner, died, and left his Widow £7.000,000. ill order to escape the death duties lie shortly before his death sold out his stock in the Houston shipping lines, hired a special train to take himself and Lady Houston, with a carload of baggage, to Southhampton, where lie chartered a special steamer and moved all his' possessions to Jersey, where the tax regulations do not apply. His death plunged the widow into a legal fight, which resulted iu a victory for the British Parliament. In making payment of a million and a-liali pounds to the Government Lady Houston bitterly pointed out that the hulk of her husband’s fortune, was made not in England, but in South America, and she further stated that his domicile in Jcivsoy put hem outside the provisions of the British death duty. As Ihe outcome of further bickering the Jersey authorities declared the widow insane. She summoned seven alienists to J<‘i.,eV at a cost of £IO.OOO. and these convinced the Court that she was sane and capable of managing Hie vast estate. Due, of her “delusions” was that hoi husband had been murdered, and she placed on the tomb the words “who died most mysteriously.” In wiardi ol isolation and vest she journeyed to Franco in her yacht Liberty, and mooted it in a wide reach of the Seine between Rouen and the sea. The anchorage had been well chosen for remoteness. From the yacht the vista is drear an., stark— nothing hut the dreary river and the bleak hills.