PRIEST AND LETTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 112, 14 May 1927, Page 23

PRIEST AND LETTER.

£2.5,000 FOR ORPHANS' BENEFIT. In a little village in the Asturias Mountains (Northern Spain) is an orphanage managed by an old priest, who often found it difficult to provide sufficient food for all the young inmates.

After much hesitation he spent £3 0/8, an enormous sum for him, on the 20th share on a ticket in the National Lottery. Then he wrote to the Director of the Mint, in Madrid, setting forth the precarious situation of his charges, and ending ingenuously: "It would bo very kind of you if you would arrange that my number (17,229) should win a prize. The least thing will be of the greatest help to us and God will reward you."

The Director was so angry that he thought of having the priest arrested. When, however, the drawing for the lottery took place. No. 17,229 won the first prize, and the priest for his share received £25,000.

He hastened to write to the Director a second letter—in blissful ignorance of the fact that he had only just escaped being imprisoned—in which he said: "You are our great benefactor. Your name shall be engraved in letters of gold in our chapel and all my orphans shall, learn to bless you."

This second epistle was received with even greater anger than the first, but the priest in his orphanage knows nothing except that his orphans are better cared for.