WINE LEFT TO TEETOTALLER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

WINE LEFT TO TEETOTALLER.

FfFTY-YEAR-OLD LEGEND. POPULAR BELIEF DISPELLED. A 50-years old legend about some priceless bottles of wine has been finally " scotched " by Dr. J. D. Rolleston, of Fulham Hospital, says a London newspaper. When Sir Walter Treveilyan, the celebrated naturalist and antiquarian, died in 1879, ho left the contents of his wine cellar to Sir Benjamin Richardson to be devoted to scientific purposes. Sir Benjamin was an eminent physician and had made a scientific investigation of the alcohol problem. He was also a very strict teetotaller. Such a legacy was naturally most embarrassing, and though many of Sir Benjamin's friends offered to help in disposing of the bottles lie was popularly supposed to have had the whole lot poured down the sink. This story was widely circulated," Dr. Rolleston said recently, " for Richardson was well known as a. most rigid total abstainer. In actual fact, however, it is quite untrue. The wine is still safe in tho bottles, for, because he did not know what to do with it, ho decided to do nothing at all. Most of the wine seems to bo of a good Burgundy type, and probably dates from about 1820." Sir Benjamin died in 1896, but early this year the wines were still in tho possession of tho Richardson family. Last July a large consignment was sent to Professor W. E. Dixon at the Pharmacological Laboratory at Cambridge, tho intention being that it should be devoted to those scientific purposes for which it was originally bequeathed.