GENEROUS GIFT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 361, 24 October 1932, Page 3

GENEROUS GIFT

A GRATEFUL SOLDIER GIVES THIRD OF A MILLION TO HOSPITAL. A PROFITABLE PATIENT. It was recently cabled that it had just been revealed that Major J. J. Astor was the ananymous donor of £32,000 to the Middlesex Hospital 12 years ago. A Taranaki resident, who knew the circumstances of the gift, says a nought has been dropped in transmitting the news, the amount being £320,000, not £32,000. The gift arose in this way. When serving with his regiment, the Life Guards, in the Great War, Major Astor was severely wounded. A surgeon found him and amputated his leg in the field, so saving his life. Later he told the surgeon that if be could be of service to him later he would regard it as a great privilege. In 1920 the surgeon met him in a London street, and told him that he was now head of a hospital that was in sore need of funds and required th'e major's assistance through his great' paper, the Jbondon Times, raising money. Major Astor asked him the amount required, and was told it was a third of a milli'on. The major said he would be very happy indeed to help in raising the money. The next day the surgeon received a cheque from the major for £320,000, on the condition that the gift was regarded as anonymous. Now, it would seem, some one has "blown the gaff." Major Astor is owner of Hever Castl'e; the most perfect of the old castles extant in England, its Italian gardens being a feature. The gardens were restored some years ago by Lord Astor, the major's father, at a cost of a million sterling. As the owner of the London Times and head of the Imperial Press Union, h'e is one of the most influential men in the Kingdom, and as modest and self-effacing as he is influential.