ROMANCES OF FORTUNES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 95, 7 September 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

ROMANCES OF FORTUNES

ACTUAL ACCOUNTS OF UNEXPECTED RICHES. Fortune is said to be a fickle dame and sometimes a false friend, and yet there are times when her actions are sincere, and her gifts generous. A few years ago good fortune befel three Parisians, in humble life, on the death of an aunt, who left a fortune of £120,000 to be divided equally among her nephews, two of whom she had never even seen. One was a clerk, at £6O a year, in an oil factory; the second was a navvy, who was glad to earn a pound a week; and the third was a cattle-dealer on a small scale, to whom a million francs was a dazzling fortune. RICH BEYOND THE DREAMS OF AVARICE. When Mr. Lightfoot, an Englishman long resident in France, died leaving an estate valued at £60,000, his lawyers searched far and wide for an heir to his substantial fortune. At last they discovered him in John Kirtley Lightfoot, a journeyman painter at Hull, and grandson of the dead man. In telling the story of his windfall to an interviewer Mr. Lightfoot said that his late father was a newspaper proprietor in Scotland, who had won some distinction north of the Tweed as a storywriter and essayist. His grandfather, whose sole heir Lightfoot was, went to France fifty, years ago, and had been lost 6ight of by the family. Lightfoot and his two married sisters received a substantial sum under the will of their father, but the son lost the whole of his portion by an unfortunate speculation, which was recommended by a solicitor. Lightfoot then made his way to Hull, and took a situation as a compositor during a printers' strike. The grandfather, who was a widower, eighty-four years of age, died early in the previous year, and Lightfoot heard through one of his sisters that French, lawyers had been searching for him. He at once proceeded to Versailles and succeeded in establishing his identity. Here was a romance of a fortune, foi jLightfoot was the last person in the world to dream of such great wealth being his. But there, it is always the ! unexpected that is bound to happen. "It is a pity that it did not come to one earlier in life," was the comment of Edward Corcoran, a Dublin saddler, heir to an enormous fortune. This substantial windfall, which fell to the hardworking saddler when he was on the verge of the seventies, was left by a John Sullivan, who had emigrated from Ireland and prospered so exceedingly in the neighborhood of Seattle that, when he died in 1900, he was owner of real property valued at £IOO,OOO. So rapidly did its value increase during the few years that elapsed before Mr. Corcoran came into his kingdom that his inheritance was etsimated at £365,000.

CASES IN POINT. Here are some cases in point of windfalls that have descended as if from the skies upon those who least expected them. Four brothers, artisans, of Bristol, found themselves suddenly promoted to wealth recently when their uncle, a Brooklyn merchant, died, leaving an estate valued at a million and a quarter dollars. Miss Agnes Jennette Russell, of Dunfermline, unexpectedly inherited £97,000, on the death of her brother, in those sordid rooms in Brooklyn were found two trunks containing securities worth £BO,OOO, and a bankbook showing deposits of £17,000; and Miss Molly Delane, a charming actress, known to fame on the burlesque stage as Marie Dalroyde, was made independent of the stage by an unexpected inheritance of £40,000 from a relative, Colonel Walter Delane, brother of a famous editor of the Times.

HEIR TO 20,000,000 DOLLARS. Across the Atlantic similar stories of unexpected windfalls are told almost by the hundred. A typical example is the following, told in the words of an American journalist. "William Warren 'Morrison, seventeen years old, works in a printing office in Federal Court, Boston. The boy has received indirect information that he is heir to 20,000,000 dollars. He knew about this yesterday. He was at his work to-day, clothed in his right mind. He trotted around with proofs, answered the telephone, ran errands, and performed the various duties of th« "printers devil" just the same as usual. 'Take this letter over to So-and-So,' said the boss to the boy, who was leaning on the stair-railing talking to a reporter about his antecedents. So William Warren Morrison tramped up another flight for his coat and hat and clattered down again, while the reporter waited. "'Gee!' exclaimed William, with perfect seriousness, when the sidewalk was reached, 'l'll lose my job if I'm loafing around this way.' That seemed to trouble William far n»ore than falling heir to 20,000,000 dollars. "The story is that young Morrison's great-uncle, Frank A. Mouritzen, one of the wealthiest residents of California and the owner of vast estates in Denmark, has died and left the bulk of his property to his youngest grand-nephew, the son of the late John Peter Morrison." THE ROMANCE OF A FORTUNE. Equally romantic is the story of Miss Anna M. Hume, a Government clerk is Washington, for whom Fortune prepared a dramatic surprise some time ago, when news came to her that a great-uncle had died and left her the enormous fortune of nine million dollars. Even such a startling revolution in her life was powerless to disturb the equanimity of a young lady whose income had never exceeded 26 dollars a month. She proceeded as placidly with her work as if such an event were an everyday affair, and received the congratulations of interviewers with a quiet smile. "I did not expect such a good fortune," she said, "for I have never seen my greatuncle and did not know that he was aware of my existence. Of course, I shall resign my position—when I get the money." But, as has been said, a volume might easily be filled with these stories of Fortune's eaprices—such as that of Pasqualc, a Milanese convict, who, while serving a long term of penal servitude, received the 1 ironical news that a wealthy aunt had left him an enormous fortune.

HOW A KIND ACT WAS REWARDED. The Obwaldner Volksfreund, a Swiss newspaper, recently told a, romantic story of the good fortune which had befallen Mile. Burch, of Obwald, in the Canton of Unterwald, through the generosity of an Englishman. According to this journal, which does not give the name of the benefactor, Mile. Burch was waiting in a large crowd before Buckingham Palace in 1886 to see the Queen, when an old gentleman, overcome by the heat, fainted near her and fell on the footpath. The Swiss girl tended him, and accompanied him home in a cab. He thanked her for her attentions, and asked her for her card before she went away. §ome months later she returned to Switrerland, and apparently the incident was forgotten. It is stated by the Volksfound that "she received a letter from a London solicitor informing her that the old gentleman whom she aided had died, leaving her a fortune of £50,000." Who says now that "windfalls" are mostly fiction?