STORY OF A GIFT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 256, 12 October 1932, Page 10

STORY OF A GIFT

THIRD OF A MILLION. GRATITUDE OF A SOLDIER. It was recently cabled that it had just been revealed that Major J. J. Astor was the anonymous donor of £32,000 to the Middlesex Hospital It years ago. A Taranaki resident, who knew the circumstances of the gift, says a nought has been dropped in transmitting the news, the amount being £320,000, not £32,000. The gift arose in this way. When serving with his regiment, the Life Guards, in the Great War, Major Astor was severely wounded. A eurgeon found him and amputated his log In the field, so saving his life. Later he told the surgeon that if he could be of service to him later he would regard it as a great privilege. In 1920 the eargeon met him in a London street, and tpld him that he was now head of a hospital that was in sore need of funds and required the major’s assistance through his great paper, the “London Times,” in raising money. Major Astor asked him the amount required, and was told it was a third of a million. The major said he would be very happy indeed to help in raising the money. Next day the surgeon received a cheque from the major for £320,000, on the condition that the gift was regarded as anonymous. Now, it would seem, some one has “blown the gaff.” Major Astor is owner of Hover Castle, the most perfect of the old castles extant in England, its Italian gardens being a feature. The gardens were restored some years ago by Lord Astor, the major’s father, at a cost of a million sterling. As the owner of the “London Times” an 1 head of the Imperial Press Union, he is one of the most influential men in the Kingdom, and as modest and selfeffacing as he is influential.