The man who
would follow it successfully must possess the boldness of a
gambler, the sang-froid of a duelist, the keen perceptive powers
and patience of a detective, and the resources and quick wit of
the shrewdest attorney.
It is easier to decry the profession than to exercise it. To
begin with, the heir-hunter must be posted up with information
respecting unclaimed inheritances, and he must have sufficient
acquaintance with the legal world to be able to obtain information
from the clerks of the different courts, notaries, and so on.
When he learns that a man has died without any known heirs, his
first care is to ascertain the amount of unclaimed property, to
see if it will pay him to take up the case. If he finds that the
inheritance is a valuable one, he begins operations without delay.
He must first ascertain the deceased's full name and age. It is
easy to procure this information; but it is more difficult to
discover the name of the place where the deceased was born, his
profession, what countries he lived in, his tastes and mode of
life--in a word, everything that constitutes a complete biography.
However, when he has armed himself with the more indispensable
facts, our agent opens the campaign with extreme prudence, for it
would be ruinous to awake suspicion. It is curious to observe the
incomparable address which the agent displays in his efforts to
learn the particulars of the deceased's life, by consulting his
friends, his enemies, his debtors, and all who ever knew him,
until at last some one is found who says: "Such and such a man--
why, he came from our part of the country.
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