STRANGE BEQUEST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20562, 13 May 1930, Page 9

STRANGE BEQUEST.

ENGLISH MARINER'S WILL,

FORTUNE LEFT TO GERMANS.

"FED UP WITH ENGLAND."

German soldiers disabled in the war are to benefit to tho extent of more than £IO,OOO under the will of Captain Otway Robinson, a retired master mariner, of Tho Cottage, Borstall Hill, Whitstable, who died recently, aged 84. A paragraph of Captain Robinson's will is as follows: "Whereas victorious and wealthy England is well ablo to provide for those who have been disabled in the late Great War, therefore I givo, devise and bequeath the rest, residue and remainder of my property as a snail gift to the German Government for the time being for tho benefit of its soldiers disabled in the late war, as, owing to the state of that country, these unfortunates (tho great majority of them conscripted under the former rigorous system of Prussian militarism) can only receive either meagre pensions or small help." Small bequests, amounting to some hundreds of pounds, are left to personal friends, and the will, which was made in 1920, has been proved at a net valuo of £12,755. A proviso stated that should the bequest to the German Government be held for any reason to be void, the whole of the residue of the estate, after the smaller bequests have been paid, is to go to General Smuts, ex-Prime Minister of Sonth Africa. General Smuts, in this case, is to retain £IOOO for himself and apply the residue at his discretion for tho benefit of any disabled Boers who suilered through the South African War, "as it is my desire to assist them in ever so small a way, and to endeavour to dispel all ill-feeling that may possibly remain between the two races." Surprise for an Engineer. Among the small bequests to friends is one of £2OO to William Bish, an engineer living in comfortable retirement at Whitstable. Nobody could havi been more surprised than Mr. Bish when the news was broken to him. Mr. Bish, who is 82 years old himself, and hale and hearty, said: "You know, he used to tell me he'd be hanged if he would leave any of his money to England. He was 'fed np with England,' ho said. 'England is going to the dogs,' he nsed to say. He was all for leaving his money to the Germans."

Mr. Robinson and Mr, Bish had been close friends for 30 years. "When I first settled down here," said Mr. Bish, "I saw the old man leaning over his gate, and just passed the time of day with him. He said, 'Come in and eee me now and again.' Nobody lived with him. He did all his housework himself, as far as I know. I used to drop in for a chat several times a week.

"One day I asked him if he had been associated with a small lino of ships that were owned by a firm called Robinson. Ho admitted that one of the ships had been partly his, but that, disgusted with something or other, he sold out and retired. " Rather Bitter About Women." "Apparently he felt he had been badly treated, and always he used to bring in about leaving his money abroad. 'Bish,*' he would say, 'I am stinking with money, but not a halfpenny will I leave to England—not a damned halfpenny!' I never knew what his real grievance was.

"I never knew whether he had «vor married, though I visited him thousands of times. In the ceiling of one of his rooms he had a hatchway, and I understood that he had thought of furnishing the house properly at some time or other, and that the hatch had been cut to get some of the furniture upstairs. He was rather bittar when he talked about women. Perhaps he had some disappointment."