Calcutta Company Romance A reminder of old time Portu—guese commercial and maritime' prowess in the Orient, says the "Kobe Herald," has come in the shape of huge dividends to desfendants of Portuguese pioneers of trade who had control of various enterprises in India and China, and who had their own fleets of barques and schooners sailing the seas from Macao to Goa and from Singapore to Callao.
In the year 1820 a Portuguese Marine "Insurance Association wound up its headquarters in Calcutta and those of the shareholders who happened to be in Calcutta at the time received their respective shure, while those of them who were absent, had their portions placed in the bank for safekeeping. Many of these absent shareholders did not the trouble to collect their respective; share because they each had only four or five scrips to the value of about a thousand rupees each, and a trip from Macao to Calcutta: in those exciting times meant a huge outlay of money, over and above the then real value of these shares, not to mention the time involved.
A Forrexe Accumvtatine, The result has been that during all these years the money has been multiplying and re-multiplying until the Portuguese Consul-General in Calcutta was apprised of the mat-for. He in turn referred it ome to the Government. The Portu guese Minister for Foreign Affai took the matter up with the In Government, through the Britisti Government, and a list of the original shareholders was subse quently published. The majority' of the descendants have already been traced, but there are a few whose whereabouts are not yet known.
OF those that have been traced, quite a few are Japan residents, and it is said that in Yokohama Mr. Felix Ribeiro, Mr. FP. de Pereira, a Mr. Mendonca, Mr. J. A. Guterres and Mrs. M.' Rozario are entitled to huge fortunes: while in Kobe, so far as is known. the brothers' Games, Mrs. F. X. 8. de Sousa, Mr. Augusta X. do Rozario, Mrs. "Maranes. Mrs. Costa, Mr. and Mre S. R. de O. Jose. and Miss Coelho (Mrs. José's sister), will find themselves. multi-million. aires on the morrow.
Muttrons or Revers.
One scrip is said to he now worth 1.250,000 rupees. and some idea of the fortune that is coming to the Kobe folk oan he gauged from the fact that the smallest portion runs to about two
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.