Money Kept Under Fowl-house Floor

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 31, 29 April 1927, Page 1

Money Kept Under Fowl-house Floor

bank not trusted STRANGE CHRISTCHURCH CASE (.Special to TUB SUN.) CHRISTCHURCH, To-day Her husband having once experienced a bank failure in Australia, the family treasure was kept hidden under the fowlhouse floor. But it was not safe even there. Mary Elizabeth Sturgess, an aged widow, of Sumner, sued her nephew Peter Haglund, for £192, of which £lB5 had, she asserted, been taken from the family bank beneath the henhouse, \fhile Haglund tended her through an illness. He had also taken £7 from the house. While she was in hospital, a watch and gold chain, field glasses, a new pair of boots, and the fowls, also vanished, she said. Thu defendant stated that he had gone to plaintiff’s place at Sumner when she was ill. She asked him to dig up the money from the fowlhouse, as it worried her. He found three boxes containing £B4 4s 9d. which he handed later to the solicitor who made her will. He had offered her money, but she had said it was worrying her, and it was the last she wanted to see of it. He then offered to pay her expenses with it, and keep the balance for her.

Plaintiff was nonsuited, but the magistrate, Mr. H. A. Young, directed that £SO paid into court should be given to her.