The "fascination of money" for some minds, of which we
speak elsewhere, is scarcely more strange than the indifference of others- to its preservation. The other day a lady died, Mrs. Mangin. Brown, in London, with a fortune of £250,000, of which she ha& apparently made no attempt to dispose, and which escheated to the- Crown. It will just pay for putting down the Zanzibar slave- trade, a very good destination indeed, but an odd one for a private. fortune. In another case heard this week before Vice-Chancellor- Melia, it was shown that a Mrs. Baker, a lodging-house keeper, had inherited £107,000 from an eccentric lodger, and in two years had muddled it away in law expenses and profuse gifts, until she- had only £10,000 left. A publican named Loader managed to. secure even this, assigning her in return a life annuity of £100 a year, and board and lodging. Once reduced to £100 a year, how- ever, Mrs. Baker recovered her senses and her sense of the value of money, and brought an action against Loader's estate for the recovery of her money, which she won, the solicitor who drew the deeds being, moreover, ordered, should Loader's estate be insuffi-- cient, to pay all costs.
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