BURIED TREASURE.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 September 1917, Page 6

BURIED TREASURE.

IN THE WAR ZONE, ■ Following is a most interesting extract from a letter written by a Wellington soldier on duty in Flanders to his parents:— "There was rather an interesting incident here the other day. I have mentioned to you before that we were located close to a ruined sugar factory. Well, an old Frenchman, aged about ninety, came here the other day with his son, a captain in the French Array, to dig up some papers, etc.. he had buried in 1914. He came to us for a digging party, so we got half a dozen, and the old Frenchman took us down a big cellar and showed us the spot. We dug up a big iron pipe about 4ft by Ift, with dead ends bolted on to it. On opening this, he took out three bags of papers and. a small bag of gold. The papers were the title-deeds, etc., of this factory and other factories (the old man was the owner) and were worth about 3,000,000 francs. The poor old man was trembling like a leaf while the boys were digging. He said ho would have shot himself if the documents had gone. He had been a prisoner in Germany for the last two years. He gave 50 francs to be divided among the boys, and went away as happy as Larry. The French seem to have all buried their household goods like that. The poor old fellow sat down and cried when lie saw the ruins of his factory, which had cost 2,000 ; 000 francs to build."