The Wichita daily eagle., 1894-02-21
HUNTING A FORTUNE
OLD MAN SMITHS BIG FAMILY MOI
IN IT WITH THE KING FOLKS.
Wichita the Mecca of Fortune Hunt
crs-It All Came About Through
the Death Of a Supposed MiSer.
General Blair HObnObbing
With the Fickle Goddess.
No one knows how many relatives he

No one knows how many relatives ht
| has till he dies
Last night the silver-t r-tongued orator Of
| Kansas, General Charles w. Blair oil
| LeavenwOrth, arrived in this city. He
came here not in the humble capacity of a
| Kansas Democrat, but as the ambassador
of Kings. They are Philadelphia Kings at
| that,
In the far away city of brotherly
love there dwell pair of Kings
who read the newspapers and believe
everything they contain. Some time ago
| they took up the Philadelphia Ledger.
that paper owned by the man of pious
memory-George Washington Childs.
They read therein that in the distant town
of Wichita where fortunes, in truth as
well as in story, had been made in day
there lived and died King who left after
him fortune estimated at $40. 600 at least.
The same item states that his friends were
unknown and that he died without chick
or child
They had a long lost brother who left
home early in youth to seek his fortune
In the wild and woody west Living in
the city of brotherly love it was but nat
him, particularly with stray SIC, 600
behind him, and they at once hired a
firm Of lawyers in their native city to Sc
cure the fortune for them. They, in turn.
knowing the ability and high character
OF General Blair as citizen and attor-
ney, employed him to proceed at once to
Wichita to look after the case. and that
is the reason General Blair is here.
He will start out bright and
early this morning, to hunt the for
tune and before night he was likely to
have good idea of the persistence of the
man who searched for the needle in the
stack of straw.
General Blair is not the only man who
has Travelled oyer the path of the fortune
hunters. All the attorneys of Wichita
and half the attorneys of Kansas have
proceeded him aud the fortune is still "out
of sight" Poor King who dropped dead
on Douglass avenue one morning
about two months ago was hardly buried
In pauper's grave at the expense of the
county when letters began to pour in from
the numerous Kings of America to the
attorneys of Wichita asking them to look
up the fortune. Some sent fees, some sent
stamps for reply and many others sent
neither fees or stamps, but trusted TO the
generosity OF the big hearted attorneys
of Wichita to secure them a fortune at
their own expense.
Each and everybody who wrote knew to
a certainty that the poor deceased King
was their brother. their sister, their uncle
or their aunt. They wanted their claim
presented before anybody else's claim SO
as TO avoid contests by impostors and pre-
tenders who had no legitimate claim.
From the latest accounts CLEANED at the
court the deceased had sixty brothers,
forty-nine sisters, thirty-eight nephews
aud seventy-twO neices 1t is the biggest
family of Kings the world ever saw.
1t was supposed at first that King had a
fortune hid away somewhere, but when |
the matter was run down it was found to
be the creature of the imagination of
colored porter at the Carey hotel.