HEIR TO TWO MILLIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 143, 21 June 1927, Page 4

HEIR TO TWO MILLIONS

SYDNEY MAN'S SURPRISE

FORTUNE -FROM DIAMOND

DEALING

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, 2nd June.

Byron, it is said; woke to find himself famous. David White, a Sydney business man approaching middle age, woke one day this week to find liiniself heir to a cool £2,250,000. This inheritance came to him through an uncle who died last year, after.amassing his wealth in diamond dealing and speculation. The inheritance represents something like £.256,000 in cash and £2,000,000 in property.

Behind this announcement there lies a story covering many dusty pages of history, and revealing bleak depths of human bitterness and suile-iiig. It starts at Nishni-Novgorod, Russia, in the middle of last century, when Solomon Wheinsky was a young Jewish fur dealer. The tax-gatherers of tlio Tsarist days made Jews their special mark, and Solomon Vbu: mess suffered through their attentions. At last ho revolted. Solomon's brother.disappeared into tho mines of Siberia, and Solomon and two sisters fled to Riga, which they reached after many days of bitter cold and hunger. Aboard a smugglers' boat they went to Amsterdam, whence Solomon Wheinsky went to London and the two sisters to America.

Solomon settled in Whitechapel in ■1852 as a "kosher" butcher. He married a Russian girl and changed his name to White. He had two sons, Abel and Aaron. Abel committed the unforgivable sin in the eyes of the Jews of London of marrying outside his faith, and their persecution of him lasted for decades and extended to his son, David. Their only sympathiser was Abel White's brother, Aaron, but ho left London for South Africa. David White, at last sickened of the feud of his co-religionists, left London for Australia with nothing, worked his passage as a steward in 1913, and after fulfilling various poorly-paid jobs, saved enough to launch out on a business career. At the time of his' inheritance he had built up a reputation and a comfortable business as the representative of a London company.

In the meantime, Aaron White, in South Africa, had become a member of a group of men associated with Cecil Rhodes. Of the bnilding of Aaron's fortmne there were many wild talcs of encounters with illicit diamond buyers, of bloodshed, of thefts, of murders, but out of the welter Aaron White emorged a wealthy man, to become richer by speculation. Aaron' nefß» married, and when he died last year, ho (lid not forget the son of that brother who had committed an indiscretion which ho alone had been able to overlook. With the exception of some small bequests, he left tliewhole of his liugo wealth to' David..