£5,500,000 AT STAKE

Evening Star, Issue 17958, 3 May 1922, Page 1

£5,500,000 AT STAKE

SEARCH FOR LOST CHEST. A liven search has begun for the chest or desk—last seen in Hastings (England) in 1875—which contains in a secret drawer documents relating to a fortune of £5,500,000 left in 1776 by Toiler Tayleur Van'do Hulst, of Haarlem, The acquisition of this vast sum by a Woolwich Arsenal storekeeper named' James Taylor, Phunslead, depends on the discovery of the chest. The romantic nature of the story has appealed to the inhabitants of Hastings and district, who realise also that the happy possessor of the cheat is likely to receive a handsome reward when he reveals the whereabouts of the cl lost. The main interest centres in Hastings Workhouse, and the thicldy-populated district that .surrounds it, for the missing chest, which is of oak, with_ three brass bands at each corner, and which measures 211 bv loin by lOin, is believed to have been taken with other possessions of the fa mil v to the workhouse when James Taylor’s '.stepmother and family entered it in 1875. ■' Tin; story is a most interesting and romantic one,” said Mr Cory, master or (iic workhouse. “ and you may rely on it (hat if that chest is anywhere about these premises I wvill have it found.” Mrs Sutton, of Old London road, in the village of Ore, near Hastings,.is the eldest living workhouse official in the district. “I was schoolmistress at the workhouse in 1875,” she said, “and I remember the 'Taylor family—-the mother and four children —being admitted to the workhouse. It was nob unusual in those da vs when a whole family were admitted to'allow them to bring some of their persona! possessions with them. We used to keep them in the clothing stores. In some cases, when people were able to leave a workhouse, they took away their tilings, but in other cases they were after a time sold. “ Periodic sales were held, and these were usually by small local dealers and the poor people in the district. The chances are that if that chest is not to be found in the workhouse it was disposed of at one of these sales, and is very likely to be in the possession of someone in the immediate district.