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Show II PAPEB fORTONE I OF $200,000,000 ! I Bat'Now York Broker, Charged j With Forgery, Is Held in ! Dcfault'of ('nil. ' . NEW YORK, Doc. 5. With a paper , fortuho of no loss than $200,000,000, i Samuel M. Biddison, broker, vrho was arrested yesterday afternoon on a eliarjje of forgery, today was a prisoner in the Tombs, unable to raiso $10,000 bail. In looking over the prisoner's, papers today representatives of the dis-trict dis-trict attorney's office brought to light bonds, stocks", coupons and prospectuses running in value from $100 to $30,000,- I 000,000. and one statement was found I which gave an cstimnto of Biddison s total wealth at about $200,000,000. Much of this was represented by claims on I large tracts of land in various sections of the country. One blue print was of Cumberland county, Tenn., and tend-ed tend-ed to show that Biddison controlled 22,000 acres of land there which was H. said to be rich in coal and oil propcr- Another paper, an abstract of a title, gave Biddison as tho owner of the Kobort Morris tract of 320,000 acres centering in McDowell count', West Virginia, The smallest piece of property men-tioncd men-tioncd was 100 acres in Lake county, Indiana, but other prospectuses showed him as tho owner of numerous other large tracts in the same section of the ; country, in fact, running all around the southern end of Lake Michigan and running up into tho stalo of Michigan as far as Muskegon county. Cause of Arrest. Biddison 's arrest was an outgrowth of the arrost recently' in Pittsburg of J. Montefiorc Meyers on :i chargo of larceny of four bonds of the Central Coal, Lumber and Construction com- i pany. One curious papor found among Bid-dison's Bid-dison's effects, and which does not 1 seem to have any financial aspect, pur- ported to be a petition io tho then i Qnecn of England, Victoria. To it were attached the names of John Shor- ' man, Grovcr Cleveland, John D. Kockc- feller and seven other prominent mon of the last decade. Jfc read in full as follows: "To her majesty, the Queen of fine H' laud", and his roval highness, tho Princo of Wales: "We. the undersigned, do earnestly beg j'o u r majesty, the most gracious , and beloved Queen of England, and his royal highness, tho Princo of Wales, pardon for tho ungracious act of our forefathers of over 100 years ago do-flaring do-flaring the independence of the United Stales. i4And now. after 100 years of inde-i inde-i pendente, we conic before you with i this petition from a humble people and I ask your forgiveness. We also ac- i knowledge our inability to run this gov- eminent alone, and beg of 3-011 that wc may have the great and glorious privi-lege privi-lege of being annexed to your great , and glorious domain, in order that wc may thereby enjoy all the blessings ' of a mouarchial government, and we 1 here and now promise 3011 we will never advocate a measure without interna-tional interna-tional agreement." The other names attached to the pc-tition pc-tition were those of Marcus Hunna, John G. Palmer, George M. Pullman, Simon B. Bucknor, John 11. Tnnlicr, Lymau C. Gage and John G. Carlisle. |