AN OUTWITTED TAPSTER.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1064, 18 April 1873, Page 4

AN OUTWITTED TAPSTER.

"Attieus" contributes the following to the Melbourne Leader: —" the biter is bit with a vengeance. • The latest victim of his own sharpness is a host of jm hotel not a hundred miles from Melbourne. Them arrived at his houre a young man from New Zealand whose father wa«known as the squire in the English village in which the landlord saw the light of day. The stranger from New Zealand produced a paper* in'which the death of his father was announced, and in which it was stated that the son was entitled to £ 10,000. The heir confessed be had no money, and proposed that the landlord should lend him £2OO, promising to make a will in his favor in ease he should die on the passage home. The bargain was concluded, the money paid, and tbe will drawn ; but instead of repairing on shipboard the young man began a career of dissipation in Melbourne, tbe landlord being in no wise anxious to put a stop to his vicious cour.-es. At last an attack of iltfiHum tremens ensued. A doctor was called in, and then as the case grew serious another was sent for. 'Chloroform was administered, but this and two medical men were too much for any mortal frame to stand, and so the patient died. The landlord gave each of the doctors a stiff cheque, paid the funeral expenses without a murmur, and even erected a handsome headstone over the grave of his friend He then wro'e to England and enclosed the will in order to touch the fruit of his generosity. He had thrown his bread upon the waters truly in vain. News came back that the old squire was alive and in good health, and it was then ascertained that the youngster had himself caused the advertistnent which was toestablish his identity as an heir to be inserted in the paper. The landlord has now a supreme contempt [for the veracity of tbe press, audlooks upon heirs as purely mythical creations of adventurous or impecunious brains."