NO USE FOR MILLIONS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14740, 20 October 1915, Page 6

NO USE FOR MILLIONS.

"PRIEST WHOCLADLY REFUSES HUGE LEGACIES. NEW YORK, August li Father William Graham, the Pittsburg' Catholic priest, who declined to take possession of. vast fortunes, estimated as of tile value of .£2,400.000 to £3,000,000: left him by the death of relatives in Sydney, Australia, and in Bolivia, finds; it less easy to dispose of the thousands of well- ] disposed people who are bombarding him with letters of advice. ' - . The burden of most of these letters is that it is a" shame a big fortune should go. begging. Suggestions of all sorts are made as f to the “good” that could be achieved with so much money. Among the proposals made are that " Father Graham should found educational ‘ institutions, build churches and monasteries, establish homes for girls and. women, societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and industrial homes for boys and girls; and one writer even suggests that .the priest should go to Sydney and Bolivia, and establish missionary schools:: 'hospitals, and a general missionary field work. ' ‘ ; “I had made up my mind,” says Father Graham, “to ignore all communications -on the subject. That is the only thing I can. do, unless I were to enlist the services of a cptps of secretaries, for no one I man could begin to answer the letters > and telegrams that are coming in. “Were I to accept such inheritances I

1 should have to give up mv work in my | parish. I should have to devote the res* ! of my life to caring for vast estates, and “I that-would be entirelv irksome to me. for 1 I have had neither training for business I nor inclination, in that direction.”