Untitled

Taranaki Daily News, 21 October 1922, Page 9

A fortune valued at about £150.-000,00-0. at par, has fallen to the lot of a comparatively poor family named Laporte, says a Paris correspondent. The circumstances in which the family becomes rich are that during the French Revolution a Pierre Laporte wa<> engaged as head cook at a monastry at St. Cichgel de Cuxao. Forced to fly the country the monks took up their abode in Cuba, taking Laporte with them. Tn Cuba the -monks purchased

considerable property. During antireligious’ troubles in the island the monks, fearing that they v.;oul<l be deprived of all their valuable estate, sold it all to their cook, the value then being some .£•(► 009,1)00. AVhen the troiibles were over and Laporte died, the monks claimed the return of their former property, but the Spanish Government. who then held Cuba, refused to entertain their application on the ground that the property belonged to the next-of-kin of the late cook. Search was made for many years and at length it was found that Laporte's next-of-i .kin lived at Padres in the south of France. In the meantime the property I has increased in value to the amount 1’ already stated, and the necessary steps are being taken to communicate with the family, who are in a comparatively poor station of life.