International Racket

Last week the Department of State was moved to issue a public warning against a new international racket. By smooth-tongued "agents," many U. S. citizens have been convinced that they are heirs to large British estates --the buccaneering gold of Sir Francis Drake, the "Blake millions," the "Townley estate" et al. To get these fortunes out of "Chancery," the "heirs" were duped into paying the racketeers thousands of dollars in "legal fees." Letters from some 300 would-be inheritors have swamped the U. S. Consulate in London.

All such fortunes are fictitious, reported Albert Halstead, U. S. Consul-General in London. "There is practically no estate of any size in chancery. The tragedy of the estate questions is that so many who write are manifestly people of little education . . . in straitened circumstances . . . who have found the suggestion of wealth most encouraging."

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