WINNERS OF FORTUNES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5220, 23 December 1927, Page 3

WINNERS OF FORTUNES.

• CALCUTTA SWEEP DRAWINGS.

WEALTH BRINGS—WHAT?

What becomes of the men and women who by a turn of fortune s wheei become the possessors of vast weaitn, the people who, for example, make a fortune on the Calcutta Sweep ?

For ,a day or two their names loom largely in the news, and tney bask reluctantly in the limelight, they are interviewed, they are cross-examined as to how they are going to spend the money that has come to them like a bolt frcm the blues—then tney are completely forgotten—they vanish. Are they happy with their newly, acquired wealth ? Are they spending it to the best advantage ? Last June a dentist’s assistant named Kilpatrick, a man of 40 years, won over £90,000 on the Calcutta Sweep. He was then working m South Africa. . Quietly Mr Kilpatrick took his money and returned inconsp icuously to England, where he bought a. for himself and .his father and moUeiOn the other hand, there was Captain T. Alban Jones, a picturesque old sailor, who diew the Derby favourite, Humorist, in the sweep of .1921. He dabbled in Indian exchange an cleaned up £5OOO. Then he put £20,000 into a railway company, and stepped out with another £55,000. Living a peaceful life in a beautiful countiy estate outside London, he is said to have only one extravagance, and tha is the purchase of a Calcutta Sweep ticket each yetar. James Carew, a Liverpool merchant, had a chance on the 1925 Derby. e was '53 years of age then, was married, but childless, and deieply interested in a home for girls at Great Crosby. . One day Carew went to the orphanage. One of the girls found the sweep ticket in h‘s pocket, and wanted to know what it was. Carew explained, and he smiled as he looked into tne curious, eager eyes. “If I should win, he said, “we will have the biggest party ever, apd I*ll adopt oh, say, 300 of you.” He was not particularly excited when. he heard his number was drawn at Calcutta, .and during the race he was sitting at home smoking his pipe. But the orphans at Great Crosby beiqved he would win, and win he didThe night of the race he carried out his promise, and completed arrangements for the adoption of 300 little Everyone wondered when little Miss Gwen Thomas, who had been a stenographer in a. Liverpool insurance office for many years, won the pool on Lord Woolavington’s Captain Cuttie io 1922. She had been earning £5 per week, and contributing to the support of her mother. For weeks Miss Thomas, worked on as though nothing had Imppctned. But one day she resigned. She bought a pretty little cottage in North Wales, gave her mother one-sixth of her money, donated a good sum to hospitals and charities, and settled down t« helping poor mothers and childrep. Mrs Nellie Ford, who won £30,000 in the Otley sweepstake of 1923, was a weaver in a factory town. She and her husband still live in the same cottage they have occupied for many years the only addition to the furnishings of which is a large framed portrait of in the parlour. The’ Derby victory of. Papyrus. Uke-> wise brought a fortune to Captain An thony Poole, who secured the first prize in the Calcutta sweepstake. Captain Poole had gone into business of Zanzibar after the Hd utilised his winnings to launch out in East Africa, and now has a fine estate near Nairobi.