A BOGUS MILLIONAIRE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 838, 23 March 1888, Page 1

A BOGUS MILLIONAIRE.

In the last issue of the London Gazette appears the notice :—“Receiving orders to surrender iu London, Burke, Thomas Fitzmaurice, AdelphiHotel, Strand.” And thereby hangs a tale. A few months’ ago, Mr Thomas Fitzmaurice Burke’3 friends were congratulating him oti a startling windfall of two millions’ sterling, and tradesmen were placing everything that fancy could imagine at his disposal. He accepted the goods and congratulations with equal complacency, but with such ample resources to draw upon his friends were amazed at his moderation. However, horses, carriages, jewellery, hotel bill, and advances of ready money soon ran up a pretty score, and as tradesmen in these days of cash transactions like prompt payments, they gave sundry hints that something on account would be acceptable. But somehow, for a two-million man, there was a strange reluctance to sign cheques, a circumstance which, with other developments, after a while raised doubts as to the very existence of the fortune, and so they began to make inquiries. MrT.F. Burke is a son of a deceased general in the British army, and the fortune is said to have been left by a foster brother who died in Auckland, New Zealand. The evidence which. Mr Burke produced to show that this fortune had come to him was not convincing, and the farther the investigations were carried the greater the doubt grew, until at last, to save the property which had accumulated in the pseudo-million-aire’s hands, a petition in bankruptcy was presented, and a sequel i 3 the notice of the Gazette . aforementioned, Mr Burke still professes an implicit faith in his coming millions, but his creditors are not so sanguine.—Pall Mall Gazette.