WEALTHY RECLUSE

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 280, 27 October 1931, Page 2

WEALTHY RECLUSE

3.45 P.M. EDITION

INTERESTING REVELATION. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received October H/, 1.15 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 26. Another phase in the curious life of the recluse John Drinan was revealed in the King's Bench action, in which the Public Trustee sought to establish whether stock to the value of £BO,OOO in the Canadian Pacific Railway, at present in the custody of a New York Bank, belonged to Drinan’s estate, or to the estate of J. Haiat, also deceased, who met Drinan on the Riviera in the closing days of Drinan’s life. Shortly before his death, Haiat instituted an action against the bank to recover the stock. Counsel described Drinan as a pathetic figure who dragged himself about the Riviera from one cheap hotel to another. He was lonely and suspicious of practically everybody, think, ing that they were trying to persecute, poison or cheat him. His income was £13,000 a year, but he lived on £2OO. He was shabby to a degree. He dressed somewhat akin to a scarecrow, and was so miserly that he did not give anything away. ft was startling, therefore, to learn that in the evening of his life he parted with stock worth upwards of £BO,OOO. The case was adjourned. John Drinan, aged 83, was found dead at the foot of the stairs in a boarding house in Nice on February 5. He had been living in a very miserly fashion, and some surprise was caused by the size of his estate, which was valued then at £76,000. and was mostly left to poor boxes. His relatives thought that the estate would approximate £200,000.