DOMESTIC SERVANTS AS LUCKY LEGATEES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 181, 4 September 1909, Page 3

DOMESTIC SERVANTS AS LUCKY LEGATEES.

The report tihat M. Chauchard, the French millionaire, who died recency, had left a fortune of no less than £2,000,000 to a lady who had mused him for many years recalls one or two, other instances of lucky nurses wno have figured prominently in the wills of grateful patients. In September last a London nu/se,' Miss Rose Holliday, who had nursel. during a painful illness of several years, a Brighton gentleman, found, after hi-: death, that he had left her £22,000, as well as the residue of bis property. Miss Holliday was a member of the Registered Xurscs' Society, and shortly before a member of the same society had received a legacy of £IOOO a year for lifp from a patient to whom she had given lung attendance. A ROMANTIC FjPISODE.

Exceedingly romantic were the circumstances under which Mr. Alex. Wyness, of Warwickshire, in 1903, left his whole estate, which ran into sit figures, to his nurse, Miss Love. Mr. Wyness was stricken with smallpox, and the doctor secured Miss Love, a former patient, as his nurse. Miss Love tended; her patient most assiduously, and, as j she ■was the same age as .Mr. Wyness,' the professional connection ripened into [something else. As days passed, and Mr. realised the futility of | battling against the disease, he made his last 'will and testament, leaving his whole wealth to Miss Love. Strangely enough, he stipulated that she was to I receive her fortune on her weddhg morn.

EigSt thousaifiF pounds was the amount bequeathed five years ago to a female bookkeeper of Milwaukee by an old man a stranger whom she* had aided for a few minutes when Be ihad been taken ill in a. train three years previously; while in the same year 'Jr. Edward Brick, a Baltimore banker, left his nurse £2OOO. , As a reward for her faithful service!, Miss Margaret Young some time ago n ceived a bequest of £9OOO from Mrs. Nevins, the ~idow of Colonel Nevins, a wealthy cotton manufacturer; wh.le Mrs. Schley, a wealthy American widow, left special bequests of £IOOO each to her coachmen and two cooks, and £2OOO to several other servants. Lily Duchess of Marliwrovgh. who died a short time ago, left £IOOO to her butler, £SOO to her gardener, and an annuity of £BO to her maid. LUCKY COACHMEN. Coachmen, like nurses, however, seem to find special favor with employers. Five years ago Mr. D. S. Carr, of Twer-ton-on-'Avon, left his coachman, Parsons, a legacy of £2OOO and all the horses and poultry o n the estate, while twoive months previously Mr. William Mills, brother of the well-known Mr. D. Ogden Mills, died and left his coachman, Frank Smith, of Buffalo, £2OOO, and £IOOO to his wife:.

HALF A MILLION FOR A CHHJ). Oneof the most amazing bequests ever madelo people of humble circumstances was that of Mr. John Port, of Manchester, who died in 1903. He left practically the whole of his fortune, amounting to oveT half a million sterling, to the nine-year-old daughter, named Jane Lofts, of a lady who for some years had been his housekeeper. In 1915 Miss Lofts will possess something like threequarters of a million, if she survives Home paper.