TREATED AS A JOKE

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 17 December 1920, Page 5

TREATED AS A JOKE

£20,000 CHEQUE

MILLIONAIRE'S GIFT.

BY CABLS-rRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGH*LONDON, Dec. 16. A message from Paris states that a teK g istor y of how ?> cheque for £20,000., bearing the signature ''of a famous Anglo-Greek millionaire, Sir Basil Zaharoff, was treated as a ioke lias come to light. It appears tb^t two months ago Sir Basil Zaharoff visited the Paris- Zoo and talked to the guardian of the monkey house. _ He waxed indignant at the miserable state of the monkey house and when told that £20,000 was wanted to put it m proper order he immediately wrote a_ cheque for that amount and handed it to the keeper.' The latter, thinking he had to deal with an amiable lunatic, gave the cheque to the office chief, who laughingly put it in a drawer and forgot all about it tor two months, when, as a matter of form he sent it to the Ministry of Education. To his horror he promptly received a sharp note asking what was meant by keeping a cheque, signed by Zaharoff for two months. . ' Sir Basil Zaharoff is a well-known continental banker, and was born in Greece m 1850. He was educaFed at London and Paris, and' established Chairs of Aviation at the Universities of Pans and Petrograd. and also one in England attached to the Imperial College of Science.