WEALTH IN ODD PLACES

Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 69, 24 March 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

WEALTH IN ODD PLACES

There died at Girton, near Newark, a few days ago, an elderly spinster, whose miserly love of money puts completely in the shade the eccentricities of the famous Elwes. She lived in a style that indicated the most object poverty, tattered, unwashed, and insufficiently supplied with food; but perhaps the most forcible proof that she was in low circumstances was the fact that she only allowed her charwoman and general help threepence a weok. Her apartments have now turned out to be El Dorados of Mdden treasure. Buried beneath the coals alone was found a small fortune, wMle notes issued more than fifty years ago, and numerous spade-ace guineas, turned up everywhere. In one corner of the room a banknote had been pasted under the wallpaper to keep out the draught, another was found rolled in a rag and thrust into the floor with the same purpose, even the cords of an old sack -bottomed bedstead wore wrapped with five-pound notes. Unlike most persons of miserly habits the lady made no will, or rather, she made a will but omitted to sign it, wMch amounts to the same tMng, and therein must the rural postman feel extremely cut up, for he was to have had five hundred pounds out of the thousands wMch the old lady left. Accounts of other remarkable finds may be of interest. In the year 1803 there died at Bath a lady who had amassed considerable money. On tho inside of her pillow-slip was pinned a note "which ran thus: "I have made a will; if you would be rich find it." There was something charming in tMs idea. The old lady must Save been of a humorous turn of mind. No doubt she often pictured to herself her young and aged relations, male and female alike, in pursuit of this phantom fortune. Carpets would be ripped up, the contents of cushions and beds scattered about the floor, the wall paper torn down, the garden dug up, and in fact everytMng topsey-turvey. The story goes that the search went on night and day for a week, each party being anxious, naturally enough, to find the will, when just as the search was about to be given up in disgust the document was found tightly sewn inside the skin of the lady's wig. Then the family gathered together to hear it read. It consisted of. one clause, and was to the effect "that the finder of tMs will, in consideration j of his labour and good luck in finding it, shall have the sum of one penny a day for Ms natural life, the rest of my property to go to charities named below." Here the story ends. Nothing is said about the feelings of the will-seekers, wMch is disappointing, for there is as grand scope here for the pen of the novelist as there is for the brush of the painter. Scarcely less strange was the recovery of fifty Bank of England notes of the value of £25 each, which an old gentleman had hidden, and the whereabouts of wMch he had forgotten. He employed a detective, put every conceivable fact and action in Ms hands, and promised a liberal reward for its recovery. First the officer made a detour of the premises, inspecting things most minutely. He had little or no basis to work upon. Pulling everytMng to pieces, he argued, was out of the question, and the help he got from his employer, a senseless, fidgety, irascible individual, was not very material. But, he rightly concluded, even though the man was not aware where he had put the money, it was not improbable that he would again be led to frequent — or, at all events visit — the same place again. Accordingly the detective watched Ms movements pretty closely. His favourite place was in the armchair by the fire, and in this he sat hour after hour. Notwithstanding the protests of the old gentleman, the detective took every part of the chair to pieces. No success, and he was perplexed. The old man stormed and raved, and vowed vengeance. In Ms temper he poked the fire vigorously, and put on more coals. Presently the heat was intense. The flames went roaring up the chimney, and the side of the oven became red-hot. Seeing the danger of allowing the latter to become too

hot, the detective threw open the oven door and drew the damper, when there, laid flat, were the banknotes. It all came back to tho old gentleman then. He remembered counting them, and, a knock coining to the door, he had placed them on the damper, pushed it in, and — " out of sight, out of mind." Of course they were all charred, and consequently unfit for further circulation. One of the most ingenious of English storytellers, recently based Ms work on the Mding of a will in a wooden leg. But there is no novelty in that. The wooden leg has been used to conceal wills, bank notes, gold, and valuable documents time without number. There is more originality in the idea of a Frenchman, who, during the turbulent times of the Commune, had a tMck poker hollowed out* and concealed his wealth therein. In the year 1820, while some labourers were clearing a ditch at Bristol, a number of guineas and half-guineas were discovered. A few days later a sailor was found digging at the same spot. It subsequently transpired that, before proceeding on Ms last voyage, he had hidden there Ms few worldly possessions, cutting a notch in a tree' to denote their whereabouts. About four j'ears previous a singular discovery was made at Great Stanmore. A foreigner was in the habit of walking about the the fields in an abstracted manner. Suddenly he disappeared. Two years later came another foreigner. This gentleman was constantly examining the neighbourhood, and at last, aftor exciting a great deal of suspicion, declared he was looking for some Mdden wealth. The foreigner, ho said, who had so suddenly disappeared, was dead, and had revealed to the visitor the fact that he had buried a large amount of money at Great Stanmore. In proof he brought a Bketch showingitslocation, but nowhere could the trees and other marks be found. -No wonder; for, during the interval since tho foreigner's disappearance, ' two ash trees had been removed from the side of the ditch. A search whore the ash trees had been, however, did not reveal the coins, and it was conjectured that a change in the watercourse must have left the treasure exposed by wasMng the earth awa}', and further, that some lucky indi•vidual must have appropriated it.