The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-07-08
HUNTING FOR LOST HEIRS.
GOOD FEES WIEN THE TRACER
PROVES SUCCESSFUL.
One Business That 10 Not Overcrowded N
ThatH Has Many DisappOintments- Lost
Savings Bar Accounts Supply Start.
linz Point OF Many OF the Long Hunts

That Has MANY UiBoppOintmentB LOST
Savings Bank Accounts Supply Start
Ing Point OF Many OF the Long Hunts.
The business Of finding lost heirs is not
oyercrowded. In all New York there are
not more than half a dozen men perhaps
who give their undivided attention to the
work, one phase of which is the finding Of
owners for savings bank accounts.
Most Of the savings banks, to be sure,
detail from time Il time certain employees
to send out letters concerning deposits
which have lain fallow for years, but, as a
rule. they rest the matter there. By means
of directories the employees communicate
with persons whose name and address agree
with those Of the depositors, and that is
practically the beginning and end Of their
efforts.
1t is not the business Of these men to do
the work Of a detective, to institute a house
to house and city to city search in person.
Frequently the bank officials wish they had
r~efrained from even sending a letter.
John Jones, for instance, getting the
communication, arrives at the bank with
an expectant air which gradually gives
place, when confronted with chronological
and genealogical questions relating to the
Jones family, to visible wrath against the
inoffensive questioner.
-You sent for me and ] am John
Jones, he will insist. with rising infection,
following the remark with broad hints of
fraud and withholding of property from
lawful heirs. The less sure he is OF kim
ship to the depositor John Jones, the more
abusive the man is apt to be.
As a result, savings banks are willing
enough to have a professional chase missing
heirs, particularly il he is willing to do the
work at his own risk. which is the business
basis on which most of the men engaged in
finding lost heirs undertake a case. This
accounts perhaps for the comparative I'M
popularity of the business.
"A couple Of hundred dollars, to say
nothing Of weeks of valuable time, may
easily be spent in advertising and cor
responding, in railroad fares and cab hire
and in interviews chasing a trail, without
getting a single trustworthy clue" confessed
a professional heir finder whose head
quarters are this city.
an such a case where does your COM
pensation come in?' he was asked.
at doesn't CONF in at all. We are out
lust SO much. On the other hand we often
make a good find without spending one
quarter of the sum mentioned. Frequently
have spent 81 600 before bringing to a
successful finish a case where the total
sum represented was not more than five
or six thousand dollars. About 20 per cent.
Of our cases are deadheads, 30 to speak.
but we make enough on the other so per
cent. to balance this loss
i. Tho fec OF tho heir finder differs accord
.fng to the fifyancaal prosperity of the heir
and the size Of the fortune he inherits,
but as a general thing it stops short of
swallowing up the entire fortune. For
tunately for the heir finder it Is not often
that the beneficiary kicks at the amount
deducted for expenses, for, az the pro-
fessional explained:
THE sensation Of a man or woman who
learns all Of a sudden that an entirely I'M
suspected few thousands is at their dis
posal is like finding money in the street,
and naturally he or she does not feel like
begrudging a generous reoompense to the
discoverer of the money. Had they known
that the cash was in existence and retained
me to prove their legal right to it, that
would be another story. AS it is, l have
dozens of letters from all over the country
praising my work and expressing gratitude
for the recovery of sums OF money OF which
the writers probably would never have
heard but for me Or some one else in the
same business.
Il have made this discovery-that it is
the rich who do the most kicking when it
comes to paying my fees. / have an in
stance of that kind in mind now. The case
IL not yet settled, in fact.
Not long ago l discovered that a woman
who lives near Fifth avenue and has a rich
husband is heir to 81 900, the nucleus OF
which she deposited in 1870 in a savings
bank in a Southern city and subsequently
forgot all about. When / informed her OF
the fact and she learned to h proper
tions her deposit had grown. she was as
pleased as any poor person could have
leen, but the pleasure disappeared when
the learned the size Of my fee, which she
Immediately refused to pay. l am a law
yer by profession, and she was willing
Only to pay the ordinary legal fee recog-
rized by the bank. waving aside any con-
.ideration for the labor of finding her.
Easy TO find her? Not at all.
Since making the deposit she had
changed her name twice and she had trav-
elled all over the country with her first
husband, and in all my search / came
across no relative OF hers who could help
me find her.
1t is quite a common thing for persons
to leave a small deposit in a savings bank
and forget all about it. especially IL they
lose their bank book. 1t is yet
for depositors to hide the fact that they
have money in a bank at all. Among the
poorer classes in particular secreting
savings bank books is quite an art-an art
practised with such success every now and
then that when the owner OF 1.-THE bank book
dies the book never sees the light again ana
the depositor's relatives remain in ignorance
ofthe fact that they are heirs to the money,
unless indeed an heir finder gets wind OF
the unclaimed account and goes to work
to hunt up an heir. In this business il a
man wants to succeed he does not wait
for cases to come TO him; he goes after the
cases.
Speaking of lost bank books, a case OF
this sort was on my books recently. In
1884 a man deposited a small sum Of money
In a Boston bank, where it remained I'M
touched until 1904. when started out to
find an heir for 1t, the only clue in my pos
~ zion hainr tho hn,iaa nHHrQla whora the