THE MISER AND HIS GOLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7567, 20 February 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MISER AND HIS GOLD.

An extraordinary scene was witnessed the other night at West Bromwiob, near Birmingham. A fire broke out in the house of an old man of miserly habits in Dagger Lane. The old man awoke from sleep to find his bedroom in flames, and the fireman urging him to escape. He jumped oat of bed, and made a dash at the bed curtains which bad caught tire, and would evidently have jeopardised his life by his frantic pulling at the curtains had not a fireman dragged him from the room by force. When released he again dashed into the room, and as he got hold of the bed curtains a bag of sovereigns tumbled to the floor, and, the bag being partly burnt, the coins rolled out and spread all over the place. With frantic eagerness the miser dropped on his knees and commenced to rake together his scattered hoard. At that moment the chief constable of the town came into the room, and, thinking the old man was a thief, dragged him out into tho open air, despite his protestations that the money belonged to him. When the fire had been extinguished the miser begged to be allowed to go into the room, and when he got inside he would let no one else in till lie had carefully gathered together hiß recovered treasure. It is stated that he had scraped together and kept concealed in tho bed curtain upwards of 150 sovereigns. .