FROM POVERTY TO AFFLUENCE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 71, 23 March 1912, Page 12

FROM POVERTY TO AFFLUENCE

A EAILWAY KING AND HIS WILL. The absence of the signature "Edwin Hawley" from a will discovered by the family of the "railway king," who died here eight days ago, has (says a New York message dated Bth February) meant the difference between affluence and poverty to Mr. Fredeiick CrandaJl, nephew of the late Mr. JMwin Hawley. Mr. Hawley left an immense fortune, which is estimated at nearly £10,000,000, and in a will executed some four years ago he bequeathed £500,000 to hie nephew, of whom he was very fond. Unfortunately for himself, however, Mr. Crandail fell in love with his uncle's stenographer, a pretty girl of twenty-three, and married her m deiiance of Mr. Httwley's opposition. ; Highly enraged, the "railway king"' ordered him from his house, > and declared that he would disinherit him. The young couple fell upon hard times almost immediately, but Mr. Cr»ndaJl refused to try and conciliate his uncle, and secured work as a stevedore at a salary of £2 a week. Such a sum is (juite insufficient for the ordinary working man in New York, and the delicately nurtured young man and his fragile wife were soon reduced to desperate straite. Hearing that his uncle was seriously ill, Mr. Crandail decided to call on him and endeavoured to secure, his forgiveness.- -Before he. .did do, howqver, Mr. ■Hawieyr.diejdy.and 4he young man had to borrow a shilling 'from a comrade in order to pay his fare to the house and pay hut last respects to the dead man, to whom he was greatly attached. The other members of the family could not give him much encouragement, for they told him that there had been no "death-bed reperitance," and that the "railway king had adhered to hte determination to cut him off. On the lawyers examining Mr. Hawley's papers, however, it was found that the new will, which would have condemned Mr. Crandail to lifelong* poverty, had not been signed, though the draft wa* all ready. The "railway king's" nephew accordingly benefit* under the old will and inherit* £500,000.