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 : ' t 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 



I. 35 



