AN EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMANT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 374, 28 January 1880, Page 2

AN EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMANT.

The Master of the Rolls in Dublin has' had to deal with an extraordinary claim. It was an application on the part of Mr Charles Malone, barrister, to have an account taken of the assets of the late Miohael Reilly, of Crosserlough, in the County Cayan, which had passed into the hands of the late James Brady ( the proprietor of a publio house.' in Stephen's Green, Dublin, whose widow was sued as The plaintiff told a ouribus story. Reilly had been a and served in India, where he amassed a considerable sum of money.. On his return in 1845 he shewed the plaintiff, who is a nephew, four large chests, one of which was opened and was found to contain sovereigns. He counted £IOOO, and that was only about one-fourth of the whole sum.' Reilly told him he had obtained it by looting various cities which were giyeh up to pillage, a statement .which,-as the Master of the Rolls observed, might have been only a soldier's boast, or might have been perfectly true; and he told the .plaintiff that , he would remember him in his will. Reilly then went home to the County Cavan to reside, and at to what became of the money there was no evidence The plaintiff attempted trace -it, m part of it, to the defendant's late husband, but the Judge believed there irag not a shred of evidence to sustain , the statement, The plaintiff's claim, rested on hii own.affidavit, and he was a gentleman incapable, of stating anything untrue: His grounds of belief were that James Brady, the deceased, was believed to be in poor circumstances,, but. that on a certain day he bought a large quantity of whiskey j that he stated he expected to be enriched by an uncle, and that subsequently lie said he had obtained what he wished. It was proved that Brady's father, who was married to Reilly's sister, was seen driving about Dublin in a car with a carpet bagj which', it was suggested, contained a portion of the money. The plaintiff also stated- that for 20 yean frem 1850 to 1870, he had no intercourse with Brady, but that he then began to call upon him at his publichouse.ljn Stephen'sgreen, and that on several occasions Brady admitted to him- that I>lie had obtained Reilly's money from his father, When he complained,'however, that he had not himself received any share of: it 4 Brady told him he only got £SOO. The learned Judge observed that if the admission had been ten times more precise, when the effect of them was to put money in the hands of another person, and the man who made them was dead and there was no corroboration, the Court ihust have rejected the evidence. The lapse of time, also,.' from 1850 to 1870, during whioh nothing' was done to bring forward the claim, waa. unaccounted for, The claim, therefore,)had failed, and the action must be-dis-missed with costs.