WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15313, 14 August 1923, Page 8

WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

STRANGE TURNS IN SYDNEY

GARDNER BECOMES A LORD

From a Correspondent. SYDNEY, August 1

Two revelations of the last week go to show that one never knows in Sydney's bustling crowds what man of rank in Bushmen's clothes or who ot fortune in penury guise one may rub shoulders with.

Nobody who knew him suspected Jack Stuart, the efficient and hardworking head gardener at the beautiful home of the MacDowells, at ICillara, one of Sydney’s select suburbs, of particularly great, expectations. A muscular man of middle age, he came to Sydney more than 20 years ago, and took up land in New South Wales, but adverse seasons pretty well ruined him and he roamed the world till the eve of the war saw him back in Australia, and the call for volunteers found him among the first. A strenuous lime in the ranks left his health impaired, and on his return he sought an outdoor job and the MacDowells engaged him -with the utmost satisfaction to both parties. Day in and day out he w:is to be seen in his old cabbage-tree hat, hard at work in .the well-kept garden, till one morning he awakes to find himself Lord Stuart of Ballater with castles and estates in Aberdeenshire and a rent-roll of £2OOO a year. But no sudden revolution in the wheel of fortune can turn Jack Stuart’s head, and he calmly goes on with his digging and mowing, and will continue to do so until the family solicitor, who is coming out on the Osterely, arrives. Such is the story of a man who has gained a fortune. Another nine days’ wonder concerns one who has left a fortune. Nobody who I;dcw the old man, Martin Edward Burke, who eked out a lonely Life at a Darlinghurst boarding-house and was generally supposed to live on a small pension suspected him of possessing a big bank account and scrip. When the old bachelor—he was over 80 years of age—became very ill a few weeks ago the people in the house were at a loss to know what to do, and length he was conveyed to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he subsequently died. He had no intimate friends and no relations were known, so the Public Trustee took over what were believed to be the small possessions of the intestate. The young clerk who went to take charge of the effects however, soon became astonished at what he found and reported to his office facts which resulted in letters of administration being fronted last Friday to the Public Trustee over an estate valued at just under £40,000 in shares and bank deposits. Little is known of the old man’s history or how ho acquired this large sum. The Public Trustee believes that he can trace his place of birth to Ireland, and will search for his next of kin. Burke is supposed to have come to Australia nearly half a century ago and was for years in the postal service, being postmaster at a small branch o ce in Sydney when he retired.