LUCKY INVESTMENTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7267, 30 November 1901, Page 1

LUCKY INVESTMENTS.

(Tit-Bxtt.) Millions' are sunk yearly in companies which fail, and hundreds of thousands lent or invested with very slight prospect of any return for the money. Every now and then, however, rich, ore is found in the half-d««erted mine, and dividends amaze the speculator, or the borrower turns a lucky page of Fortune's book an4 repays the old debt with interest. . Those who read of the millions of Mr Andrew Carnegie can hardly realise the fact that when iftir Carnegie's father and mother left Scotland, in 1847, they were so desperately poor as bo be obliged to borrow small sums to aid them to emigrate. The other ! day Mr Carnegie discovered that a sum of lls, lent by a Mrs Lennox, of Dunfermline, had never been repaid. Mrs Lennox herself had been dead for many years, but her two daughters were still alive, one t}ie wife of a joiner in Dunfermline, the ots)«r managing a little drapery shop in Edinburgh. The debt at compound interest amounted to £9, but, not content with merely repaying the sum, the great ironmaster sought out the two ladies, thanked them in person, and endowed them with such; a" sum as will keep them both in comfort "for the rest of their lives. , AKOTHEB PLEASANT INSTANCE OF HUMAN GKATITXJDE was reported some months ago from Berlin. Many years ago a wealthy clothing merchant of that city was stricken with what appeared to be consumption. He wais taken to, hospital, and there was lucky enough to be nursed -by a charming, and accomplished young woman. Owing mainly to her -care, he recovered, and before he left the hospital asked her to marry him. But she refused. In 1898 the nurse, having lost her' savings, got work in. an American hospital, and went to fttw, YoTk, and there? : last, spring .. the ne-w&JsacheoL iier vtfcat h«r former patient had died and left her his entire fortune, £600,000. A Lancashire doctor has .recently come in for a most pleasant increase of income to tihe amount of £65 a year, which he oms entirely to- a -kindly act done seven or eight years ago. It was one snowy winter nighit that the physician had come in after a hard day's work, and was dressing to go .to an important dinner, when word arrived from an oldwomaini in an almshouse seven miles anvay, and quite out of his district, begging him to come to her. She was mad with neuralgia, and he had once relieved her of her pain when she lived nearer some time before. The doctor put on his wet driving-coat again, ordered ou^ a fresh horse, and spent three hours on bis errand of mercy, missing his dinner and catching a fearful cold. Last January the old woman came in quite unexpectedly for house property worth £1400, and when she. died in March LEFT THE DOCTOR EVERY FEN'NT OF IT, IN TOKEN OF HFR GRATITUDF,. John M. Watson, of Globe, in Gila County, Arizona, is a quite uneducated man of fifty, who was working hard for £6 a month three years ago, and who today is remitting to" his hanker? £300 every thirty days. In 1877 Watson bought from a friend a quarter interest in a copper-mine near Tucson, Arizona. On this he spent £20, a whole year's savings. Afterwards Shis wife became ill. and he offered his mine stock to the doctor for his services. But the physician refused it. The original owner of the lode at last sold out his threequarter interest to a company, who began to work the ore, with modern machinery. The richness of tbe- mine then became clear, and Watson's quarter-share is valued at nearly £4000 a year. . Very similar was the caise of a Scotchman named Gillespie, who wer.t to the Transvaal eleven years ago and obtained work on a gold-mine. The company, who were doing very poorly, paid thtir men partly in cash, partly scrip. Eventually the Scotchman got tired of -working for these beautifully engraved, but worthless, pieces of paper, and left the company's employ. His wife, meantime, USED THE SHAKE -CERTIFICATES TO PAPER THE WALLS OE THEIR CABIN. The couple were in very low water when. a broker hunted them up and made an offer for their curious wall-paper. The amount mentioned was so large as to excite the miner's suspicions, and he made inquiries, the result of which was that he found himself owner of a large share in one of the best-paying mines on the Rand. One of the happiest instances of an investment turning cut trumps was this following: — A girl living near Plymouth became engaged to a clerk on the Stock Exchange, who was down in Devonshire for his holiday. The young fellow induced his fiancee. to invest £100 which ha.d been left her by a godmother in certain West Australian mining shares. The couple were to have been married the following spring, but A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT SHATTERED THEIR HOPES. The ycurug clerk was knocked down by a cab in London and so badly injured that (he died. Some years passed, and the lady became enga.ged again, this time to a' lawyer. They were married and came to live in London. The lawyer's partner failed, and something very like ruin stared them in the face. In realising all they conkl the old shares were discovered. Their owner had made inquiries about them before her marriage, but could learn nothing definit-o, and had sdnce forgotten their very existence. To the surprise and delight of tho "wife she new found that her original £100 had increased to marly £2000. a sum whk-h was sufficient to restore matters to a satisfactory footing.