A COAL-HEAVER SUCCEEDS TO AN ENGLISH EARLDOM.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3482, 4 September 1882, Page 4

A COAL-HEAVER SUCCEEDS TO AN ENGLISH EARLDOM.

Connellsville (Pi.), July 13. — This modest town has a genuine sensation. It consists in the discovery that among the labourers in the railroad shops is numbered a genuine nobleman. His name is Egerton Davis. Two years ago he came here ragged and weary, and applied for aid at the hands of the Rev. W. F. Stoner, rector of the Episcopal Church. Representing himself as a devotee of that faith and in want, the rector aided him, not only in supplying hi 3 needs but in procuring employment. As the result of the clergyman's influence, the tramp was given work as a coal-heaver in the employ of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Subsequently he was promoted to grease-wiper in the round-house, and thence to work in the carpenter shop. In every place he worked assiduously and faithfully. By good behaviour he won upon the esteem of the community. He kept up a correspondence with his wife in England, who has just informed him by letter that by the death of an uncle he succeeds to the title of Earl of Elsemere, with an income of £50,000 a year, His story is an interesting one. Born at Liverpool in 1837, he was educated at Eton. Then reverses came and he learned the trade of a cabinet-maker, and subsequently engaged in business with an extensive coal and iron firm. Then health failed him and he came to America, landing in New York. After repealed misfortunes there he went to Philadelphia, where he was robbed of his effects. After an unsuccessful effort to recover his stolen property, in which all his resources were exhausted, he then became a tramp and visited all the cities of the United States, terminating his nomadic life with his appearance here two years ago. He is a man of good address and prepossessing appearance, and though his accession to wealth and station is sudden, it causes less surprise than might be expected. He left to-day for England.