LEGACY OF £80,090

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3482, 21 June 1934, Page 3

LEGACY OF £80,090

HIGH UISIGLE In real life. Last week" (Says the Melbourne Argus of May 28) Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Connell, of Wynnstay Place, FraKran, were just "getting along" on Mr, Cornell's weekly, wage as a French-polisher. This week they are wdrth' something like A rich uncle* story came true, and to-day is Mr. Cornell's last in the furniture factory, where he has worked for eight years. Mrs. Corinell was the favourite niece df Mr. James Booth, of New York, who died in November, aged 59 years, a widower without children. He perpetrated upon the summer colony Kairid girl of six or seven." Mr. Booth's solicitors sought her first in Aberdeen, Scotland, where she was born, and then in Melbourne. She Was traced to Kew, where she was married in the Prsebyterian Church two years ago, then to Toorak, and at last to Wynnstay Place, Prahran. The Melbourne agents of the New York solicitors informed her that she has inherited an estate worth approximately £BO,OOO. The exact value of the property is not definitely known, but it includes £12,000 in cash, a home and staff of servants, two motor cars. a stonermasonry business in West 52nd Street, and other property in Brooklyn, New York. ■Mr. and Mrs. Connell have booked theft passage to the United States by the Mariposa on July 23. Their plans are indefinite. Mr. Connell "supposes that the' stonemason business will have to be looked after," and Mrs. Connell said that she had been too excited to make any plans.

"To-day I have been busy making arrangements for our trip," she said. "I just cannot realise that it is all true. I had not seen my uncle since 16 years ago, when he paid a visit to iScriilahd. I have been in Australia for eight years. I was his favourite niece, and he wanted to adopt me when I was a child. He left Scotland 28 years ago, and I had heard that he had been successful in business."

One sentence of the letter enclosed with the will, of Which Mrs. Connell Has received a copy, indicates the affection with which Mr. Booth regarded his niece Dorothy Evelyn: "If you should be married, and I do not suppose that it has passed you by, I hope - that he is worthy of you and the solid Scotch type. There are none to be compared with them, as you Win find through life." This hope has been fulfilled, for Mr. Connell was in Ayrshire,- speaks with a strong Scotch accent, and was not at all enthusiastic about leaving his work in the factory for long enough to be interviewed. "I have worked here for eight years," he said. "It has been hard work. I am' going to give up my job after to-morrow." A representative of Mr. Booth's legal advisers is expected to arrive in Melbourne from America in about three weeks.