EXAMPLE FOR HITLER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 March 1941, Page 7

EXAMPLE FOR HITLER

MAN WHO KEPT HIS WORD FORTY YEARS AFTER. WAIRARAPA LUCK IN KLONDIKE. In these days of Hitler, it is refreshing to hear of a man who kept his word. Nor, was it necessary in this case to draw up an elaborate document. It was simply a case of memory and honesty. Forty years ago, one of two brothers who owned a station in the Wairarapa decided to go to Alaska to join the Klondike gold rush. His brother was reluctant to see him go alone and when a station hand expressed his desire to join in the adventure. the brother who was to stay behind raised £lOO to make the trip by both men possible. As they left, the farm hand said to him, “We share equally in any profit.” After six years in the Klondike the station-holder brother returned to New Zealand, leaving the former station hand to carry on. In the passage of the years the two lost touch. Then, recently, a draft arrived for £2990 with advice that the borrower of the £ 100 was disposing of his interest in the Klondike and leaving there. The receiver was reluctant to take this fulfilment of a bargain that was just by word of mouth, and casual and unpremeditated at that. So he wrote back asking the former station hand to come to New Zealand and. if he still liked New Zealand station life, to make his home on the station. This letter went astray. Then the other brother was advised that, no acknowledgment was received of the original draft but the letter enclosed another one of £7OO. representing a half-share of further assets realised. What the further outcome of this fulfilment of a verbal 40-year-old bargain will be is not yet known but the whole matter takes its place worthily among some of the extraordinary incidents associated with the Klondike and a time when no documents were needed to bind a man to his word.