Fortunes From Tips

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 22

Fortunes From Tips

■ ERHAPS no better example of the wealth of scores of Sydney waiters can be afforded than the purchase by Mr. A. Farros, Greek waiter, of a block of nine flats in Grafton Street, Bondi Junction, for £10,500. When Ferros came to Australia, eight years ago, he- possessed only the clothes he wore. Today he is worth a small fortune. After signing the contract for the purchase of the flats from Mr. (3. Baker, builder, Ferros went back to may get a certificate of birth and from it the parentage. If you do, you work back to the parents’ marriage, and so on. But in this case the death certificate yielded nothing of any value. If there was any proof of the woman’s marriage-, it could not be found. There remained then only the lists of stockbrokers for 50 years. Few had borne the name under which the Intestate had passed, and the wives of all these were accounted for. Whatever else the woman may have been ,she was certainly not the widow of a stockbroker. I have often thought that the most remarkable feature of this sinking of identity is that it was practised in one of those little towns where, it is said, “everybody knows everybody’s business.” What an achievement thus to beat the gossips!

his job of cleaning oysters and serving at Victor’s Cafe, in King Street, Sydney. Ferros started with £7O, which he saved from tips. He put a deposit on a block of land at Vaucluse, which he afterward sold at a profit of £SOO. He then bought some shops in Oxford Street, which he sold at a profit of £BSO. Guided by Dibbs Brothers, city real estate agent, Ferros then made £BOO from an investment in terrace houses in Dowling Street. Among his other profits from real estate were £750 from three shops and a large residence in the eastern suburbs, and £l,OlO from a residence at Vaucluse. With all Ms wealth, Ferros continues life as a humble waiter. He would sooner open oysters and serve soup than sit at home all day in his luxuriously furnished home at Vaucluse. Wealth of Waiters Scores of Sydney waiters are wealthier than the men they serve. The head waiter in one of the city’s leading hotels drives to work each morning in a motor-car worth £BOO. He owns a £5,000 home at Coogee, and is the landlord of 10 workers’ homes In the Western Suburbs. Another waiter in a city club owns a £24,200 block of flats in Darlinghurst. A steward, who for years worked on passenger vessels on the Australian coast, recently retired from the sea, and immediately built a £12,000 block of flats at North Sydney..