RICH AMERICAN UNCLES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4908, 27 November 1925, Page 4

RICH AMERICAN UNCLES.

GENUINE SPECIMEN FOUND.

AN EPISODE IN ITALY.

The rich uncle who has made his pile in America and in his declining years comets home- to do the handsome thing by his nephews, and nieces is a, common character in Italian comedy, and even more in the Italian law courts. Sometimes the uncle is a pure “Bunbury,” a non-existent personage invented for their own dubious purposes by the alleged nephews; sometimes the nephews ,are the victims and the uncle a pure imposter; sometimes the uncle is a real uncle, but his, vaunted dollars pure fiction. Just occasionally both the uncleship and the fortune are genuine.

The other day (relates the Rome correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian”) a youth of sixteen was arrested in a train at Turin on a charge of intended burglary. A timid lady seated in his compartment suspected designs upon her purse and proceeded to scream. The police arrived, and, finding the boy’s pockets stuffed with banknotes- and a valuable piece of jewellery among them, marched him off ,to the police station. Asked where this wealth came from, the boy answered that his uncle, just home from America, had given it to him. (Loud laughter.) Where was the uncle ? At Potenza. (Loud laughter : Potenza is to Turin as the Isle of Skye to London.) However, the police dutifully, telegraphed to their colleagues at Potenza to make inquiries, in response to which, to their amazement, there appeared shortly in Turin a prosperous gentleman who was the boy’s uncle, had come back from America, and had given him, besides .a large sum of money, a tiepin worth about £250, which he kept loose in his not very elegant coat pocket ! The boy was released with almost abject apologies.

No such happy ending is expected to the case og Adamo Tavernini, a professional “uncle” who has just been arresed at Mestre. This aged scoundrel had for the better part of a halfcentury exercised the profession of near relative just home from America well stocked with this world’s goods, varying it only with an occasional tour, in sacerdotal costume, to enjoy for a while the repoise and good cheer of the hospitable parsonages of the Alpine districts. As the dollar-laden relative his career was long enough to 1 render advisable a gradual ascent in the table of kindred and affinity from son or nephew to husband, brother, uncle, and, finally, grandfather, though uncle remained always his preferred role. His belt well stuffed with small change, and professing himself in immediate expectation of heavy luggage and substantial bank drafts, he would gain acceptance in one village after another as a longlost member of some prosperous family. His skill in making a display of familiarity with the tribal history was- only equalled by his ability to extricate himself from difficult con-, versations with the help of assumed epileptic fits. The supreme moment of his career was, surely experienced in 1920, when a happy township welcomed him home with the honours of an ecclesiastical procession and a solemn Te Deum !