Heritage Racket

"Mr. Drake, I presume?"

"That's right. My name's Ezra Drake."

"Well, Mr. Drake, I'm George W. Blank and as a result of painstaking investigations I am convinced that you are a relative of the great Sir Francis Drake. I believe that you have a just claim to the spoils which Sir Francis accumulated through privateering operations in the 16th Century and which are held in trust in England, awaiting the appearance of rightful heirs."

"For land's sake, Mr. Blank! What had I better do about it?"

"You may safely leave the matter to me, Mr. Drake. Of course, you understand there are legal formalities. . . . As a retainer suppose you give me your check for, say, $300 and . . ."

Wearied with complaints from victims of the old Drake racket, chiefly inflicted on the yokelry, the Post Office Department last week broke a precedent. Postmaster General Brown made public the names of seven citizens to whom the use of the mails would be denied because they had accepted "donations" from hopeful aspirants to the Drake fortune. Oddly enough, 100 letters at once reached the Post Office Department from Northwestern farmers protesting the issuance of the order. The Department calculated that from them and their ilk, $1,300,000 had been bled by Drake racketeers. "There has never been any record," said Solicitor Horace J. Donnelly, turning over his evidence to the Department of Justice, "of any unsettled or undistributed Sir Francis Drake estate.

. . His property has continued in unbroken succession in the possession of his legitimate heirs."

Last week Counselor Ray Atherton of the U. S. Embassy in London reported a steady stream of inquiries from U. S. citizens regarding nonexistent estates they would like to come into. "These letters are so numerous," said he, "we have prepared mimeographed forms to answer them."

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