STORY OF A FORTUNE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19321, 7 May 1926, Page 12

STORY OF A FORTUNE.

SECRET HOARD OF GOLD. END OF THE SCALES CASE. LONDON. April 21. In its reserved judgment in the appeal of Mary Scales against the executors of the; late George Scales, the Privy Council declared that the £4OOO which the appellant handed over to her husband in 1907 was for investment on her behalf. An inquiry, it was pointed out, should be directed as to whether any of the testator's properties at his death represented these investments, with liberty to tlio appellant to apply for the transfer of those investments, and also for the payment of the balance, with interest since her husband's death. In other respects the. judgments of tho courts below stand. There will be no costs to the appellant here. ' Any costs she paid to the respondents shall be refunded to her, and the respondents' costs as between solicitor and client shall be paid from the estate. Mrs. Scales stated that she was immensely pleased with her partial success. The award, she said, meant far more than appeared at first sight, because the £4OOO invested in Sydney properties had increased enormously, and would now be worth nearly £20,000. Nevertheless, she added, she would like to bo assured of the possession of the remainder of the investments, because they represented a still larger sum. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council listened to a romantic story of a secret hoard of gold coins weighing 2cwt-., told by Mrs. Mary Scales, a 'J'asmanian, who married a stonemason. She claimed that her husband had buried in tho garden money accumulated since 1807 from a laundry business, hawking honey and dealing in rags, bones and bottles. Latterly, it was stated, appellant was a beauty specialist, clairvoyant and faithhealer in Sydney. This profitable« busU ness was ended in 19.13 by police action. Her husband loft £50.000. At the hearing of the original suit remarkable evidence was elicited. Mrs. Scales claimed that it was mainly through her efforts, as a clairvoyant, that her husband amassed his fortune. Tho nucleus of Mr. Sealpr's wealth was 12.000 sovereigns, which she declared were dug up from the backyard of her home at Ashfield. That money, she, also asserted, had been invested, and it accumulated and multiplied into his ultimate big fortune; but Mr. Justice. Owen decided against her. An extraordinary incident at the hearing was the leaving of the court by Mrs. Scales in what she declared was a clairvoyant trance. "With extended arms and mystic step she moved airily out of the court.