THE FREER GALLERY OF ART 
beard. Although a millionaire many times over, he did 
not advertise the fact. He went quietly to London, quietly 
inspected the peacock room, quietly wrote out a check 
for $63,000, and then quietly stole back to Liverpool 
again, and quietly set sail for America. 
“By the time he was on the sea, art circles in England 
were stirred up by such a storm as they had never before 
experienced. England had been robbed of one its greatest 
art treasures. The news was cabled all over the world, 
and incidentally to New York. From Boston, Philadel¬ 
phia, and other large cities near the coast, newspaper men 
came to meet Mr. Freer. 
“Coming across the sea the great collector racked his 
brain to find a way in which he might escape the promised 
newspaper notoriety. He evolved a scheme. It was after¬ 
noon when the boat arrived, and Mr. Freer had the rumor 
spread that he was not feeling well, and would not land 
until morning. The newspaper men dispersed to get their 
suppers and await the coming day. Then very quietly, 
Mr. Freer walked down the gangplank. Quietly he 
entered a cab, drove to the railway station and bought a 
ticket for Detroit. And the next day Mr. Freer was many 
hundreds of miles away. And this is why, Mr. Freer now 
relates for the first time, there were no big newspaper 
stories about him at that time.” 
The last will of Mr. Freer provides a large endowment 
fund. Besides the gradual increase of his collections 
along the lines laid out in his own collection, the will 
makes provision for promoting “the study of the civiliza¬ 
tion of the Far East and the appreciation of high ideals of 
beauty.” In furtherance of these objects, the Freer Gal¬ 
lery in 1923 joined with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 
in sending an archeological expedition to China under the 
direction of Mr. Carl Whiting Bishop. This expedition 
has carried on fruitful investigations at various localities in 
China, including the opening of a number of interesting 
and instructive mounds and tombs. The most far-seeing 
[I5i] 
