POLICEMAN and MILLIONAIRE

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1076, 20 May 1882, Page 2

POLICEMAN and MILLIONAIRE

Almost everybody, at one time or another, has dreamed of what he would do if he were suddenly to become enormously rich, but so few have actually realised their dreams that it is interesting to note how far fulfilment corresponds with expectation; in the rare cases when a poor man becomes a millionaire. Robert Robson, an old policeman, who spent six years in the service of Joseph Hume, has been declared by the Court of Chancery the rightful heir of an estate valued at £250,000, which has remained in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners since the murder of his grandfather in Manchester in 1874. The fortunate heir, who is now 72 years old, is staying at an inn in Newcastle, where he is pestered beyond endurance by the visits of affectionate and long-lost relatives, whose very existence he had forgotten, to say nothing of hosts of others whom he had never met. Among the latter claimants were no fewer than three or four ladies, who stoutly asserted that he was their lawfully wedded husband, and refused to be convinced by the appearance of the veritable Mrs Robson that they were mistaken in their man. This, it must be admitted, is somewhat of a novelty. Every one knows that money is sufficient to purchase “ troops of friends,” but hitherto not even a fortune of £250,000 has been able to call thre or four wives at a moment’s notice from the vasty deep.— Pall Hall Gazette.