NOT ENOUGH JOHNSON.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 184, 6 August 1898, Page 4 (Supplement)

NOT ENOUGH JOHNSON.

Mr William Gillette nightly at the end of the first act of 'Too Much Johnson " remarks 'If there's a man named Johnson about he's going to have'a picnic.' Mr Thomas Johnson, of Huddersfield, may expect a similai* picnic, if he re-appears in England again after having- been so loved, so lost. He was one of a family of Johnsons who kept a couple of boot and shoe shops in Huddersfield, which brought in a profit of £5 a week. In February, 1895, a fire took place in one of the shops and three months later Thomas Johnson received £795 from a reluctant insurance company, after which he abandoned business at the premises destroyed. Whether the stars conspired against him at his birth or he had some premonition that he would come to a sudden end, Thomas about this time seems to have been filled with a desire to make provision in case of his death by accident. In 1893 he had insured in the Railway Passengers' Company for £1,000 against fatal, accidents. In June, 1595, although he owned property to the extent of some £1250 only" and had but an income of £ 170 a year all told, he made proposals to different insurance companies for insurances to no less an amount than £15,000 in respect of death from fatal accident. At last in March, 1896, he succeeded in getting a policy from the Mutual Insurance Company of New York for £ 10,000, which sum the company promised to pay Henry Johnson (his brother) on the acceptance of satisfactory proof of the accidental death of Thomas. Thomas did not disclose to the New York .Compaq,the proposals he had made to other companies, and although his annual income was but £170, undertook to pay in premiums £333 a year for twenty years before he could derive any benefit from the policy. In July, 1896, Thomas and* Henry went for a holiday trip to the Isle of Man. From Port Erin they made various boating excursions to Bradda Head. On the 23rd July, Henry was found on the rocks under the Head, and their boat swamped, neither much damaged. Thomas was according to Henry 'dead to the world.' They were, 'he told those who rescued him, just off Bradda Head when Thomas said to him that they had gone far enough and must go back, and as the boat was being turned round it gave a lurch which threw Henry headlong into the sea. The water was choppy and as he swam through the surf towards the rock under the cliff, he could see nothing of his brother or tlje boat. He himself reached the shore exhausted, but poor Thomas was no more. After a decent interval of grief Henry told his sad tale to the insurance company and modestly requested the £10,000. But the company intimated that they had 'not enough Johnson.' On production of Thomas's corpse they would be happy to pay, without that they 'thought there was too much assurance about Henry's claim. The indignant Henry sued them, and told his tale once more before Sir Henry Hawkins and a special jury. The weather was rough he said at the time, his brother's body must have been carried out to sea by the under current, and moreover, how could his brother have escaped up a cliff some 300 feet high, up which there was only a track fit for a goat. One tale is good until another is told, but unfortunately for Henry the insurance company's witnesses put another complexion on the matter. They proved that the weather was suitable for pleasure parties on the day of the accident, that there was no undercurrent, that the water where Thomas was supposed to have been drowned was clear, and only some ten or twelve feet deep, and that the path up the cliff, though rough, could be climbed in some seven or eight minutes. Further, it leaked out thatbefdre leaving Huddersfield for his holiday Thomas, who was a good swimmer, had been diligently practising swimming in the local baths with a wonderful machine of his own invention, which he fastened under his chin and propelled by a handle. He had also three weeks before the accident ordered a false beard from the barbers to amuse his little nephews, and as it was too black .returned it with a lock of his own and obtained one that exactly matched the colour of his own hair. Although Thomas was as a rule a clean shaven man, he was about this time seen in the office of one of .the ..insurance companies wearing a moustache. It also appeared that although Thomas and Henry had been staying at Douglas they had day after day gone to the Bradda Head, sixteen miles away, rowed in a boat to the bottom of -the zig-zag miners path, and walked up the hill to the top of the path. The insurance company could not swallow Henry's story nor could not swallow Henry's ten minutes' deliberation found a verdict for the defendants. Clearly Thomas is in a tight place now. He has lost his money, he dare not return to England if he is still alive, even with the beard that amused the critical nephews. But if it be that even after the numeroiis. dress rehearsals on the day of the final.matinee he threw himself into his part with, too much

energy and really did become tlie prey of the winds and waves, he is in. a worse plight still. The Johnson case will for the present have to be added to the undiscovered mysteries.