GALLOPER’S COSTLY JOKE

Shannon News, 18 June 1926, Page 4

GALLOPER’S COSTLY JOKE

MISSING HOUSTON’S MILLIONS.

Lord Birkenhead is credited by the English newspapers with having made the most expensive joke in history. Birkenhead was once a great friend of Sir Robert K. Houston, the wealthy shipowner, who died recently at his home on the Island of Jersey, and Sir Robert was said to have made a will leaving the bulk of his fortune, estimated as high as £7,000,000, to Birkenhead. The Houston will, which was probated in Jersey recently, makes the widow the chief beneficiary, and the papers recall Birkenhead’s joke. When serving as a member of the House of Commons, Sir Robert, in spite of his advanced age, always kept his beard a glorious blackishblue colour. One day he made an ultra-Conservative speech which displeased Lord Birkenhead, who in private conversation referred to him as “tir only genuine die-hard.” It was this play oh th e word which is applied to the ultra-Conservatives, the newspapers believe, that kept Birkenhead from sharing largely in the Houston fortune.