STORY OF A FORTUNE.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2947, 26 July 1878, Page 2

STORY OF A FORTUNE.

The Limerick correspondent of the Irish Times says :—-Mr D. P. M'Carthy, a native of Cork, architect, of Barrington street, Limerick, received a letter signed Gr. A. Stanley, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, informing him as follows: —I am directed to inform you that the first instalment of t' c O'Keefe legacy has come to hand in your favor for £500,000. The whole of the greater portion' of the £5,000,000 left by the deceased will come to you, except the portion alloted to your brothers, which the Crown will decide." The parents of the deceased Mr O'Keefe (Mr M'Carthy's first cousin) resided in Cork, and carried on a respectable business there as general merchants. Both Mr O'Keefe's parents died before his majority. He had one brother and one sister, but both are dead. After a time spent in Cork with his father, and while yet only about eighteen years of age, he made his way to India, where he enlisted as a private soldier. By assiduity and good conduct he at last received a commission, but-he did not retain it long, believing that commerce was his real forte. Service in the East during the year 1842 naturally suggested to his mind that he could make money by engaging in the opium traffic and other great branches of trade carried on in the East, and so he went into the opium trade, some said as an agent of the East India Company, others on his own account. Be this as it may, by close attention to business and " good luck " he soon acquired a colossal fortune, which will astonish many a modern Croesus—five millions of money in ready cash, and an income of £150,000 from landed and other property. Mr O'Keefe died unmarried in February, 1876, when Messrs Carrington and Wigley, solicitors, advertised for heirs, of which apparently there was no lack, no fewer than 175 applicants putting

in claims as the next of kin of the tloceased ; but they were all put aside on investigation in favour of Mr M'Carthy, of Limerick, who has four brothers, each of whom will come in for a 25th part of the fire millions and estate.