Golden Boy

Harry Falconer McLean was at it again last week. Once more the greying, six-foot, 60-year-old Scots-Canadian whose hobby is largesse and who has been giving money away for ten years had apparently eluded the harassed, grey-haired, unidentified woman who usually accompanies him on trips and tries to head off his eccentric, spur-of-the-moment cash philanthropies.

In Kentville, Nova Scotia (pop. 3,928) he gave Dorothy Stronach, hotel housekeeper, $20, told her: "Every time I meet you, a 20 is yours." He met her once more, shelled out another $20. Two maids who cleaned McLean's room got $50 apiece. An R.A.F. officer who bumped into McLean had $45 thrust upon him. Ruby Costello, 20-year-old bellhop, got $96 in tips. Total outlay in one day: $281. It left Kentville gasping. But it was really small-fry stuff for Harry McLean.

U.S.-born (North Dakota), superwealthy Mr. McLean lives in Merrickville, Ont., is head of the Dominion Construction Corp. of Toronto. Last October he staggered gaily through two wards of Toronto's Christie Street Hospital, gave returned soldiers fistfuls of bills ranging from $50 to $200, ended by tossing a couple of thousand dollars on the floor.

Two weeks later, in Halifax, a taxi driver got $2,000 for his son's education, a hotel clerk got $1,000 for no reason at all, a telephone operator $500. Back on another visit to the Toronto hospital, McLean ran through $6,000 in short order, left happy as a lark with 13-c- in his jeans.

McLean says he has received "27,000 marriage offers" (one from the Fiji Islands), since his banknote binges began. For his philanthropies he has a standard explanation: "The basis of a new social order must be happiness."

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