AS MINISTER TO GERMANY- 1879 -1881 545 



or three centuries ago, is held at the imperial treasury awaiting 

 heirs. My grandmother s name was Miller. Please look the mat 

 ter up and inform me as to my rights. 



Yours truly, 



JOHN MYERS. 



P.S. If you succeed in getting the money, I will be glad to pay 

 you handsomely for your services. 



Such letters as this are easily answered. During this 

 first sojourn of mine at Berlin as minister, I caused a cir 

 cular, going over the whole ground, to be carefully pre 

 pared and to be forwarded to applicants. In this occur 

 the following words : We have yearly, from various parts 

 of the United States, a large number of applications for 

 information or aid regarding great estates in Germany 

 supposed to be awaiting heirs. They are all more or less 

 indefinite, many sad, and some ludicrous. . . . There are 

 in Germany no large estates, awaiting distribution to un 

 known heirs, in the hands of the government or of any 

 body, and all efforts to discover such estates that the lega 

 tion has ever made or heard of have proved fruitless. 



Among the many odd applications received at that pe 

 riod, one revealed an American superstition by no means 

 unusual. The circumstances which led to it were as fol 

 lows : 



An ample fund, said to be forty or fifty thousand dol 

 lars, had been brought together in Philadelphia for the 

 erection of an equestrian statue to Washington, and it had 

 been finally decided to intrust the commission to Profes 

 sor Siemering, one of the most eminent of modern Ger 

 man sculptors. One day there came to me a letter from 

 an American gentleman whom I had met occasionally 

 many years before, asking me to furnish him with a full* 

 statement regarding Professor Siemering s works and 

 reputation. As a result, I made inquiries among the lead 

 ing authorities on modern art, and, everything being most 

 favorable, I at last visited his studio, and found a large 

 number of designs and models of works on which he 



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