A CHILD HEIRESS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2079, 14 May 1907, Page 1

A CHILD HEIRESS.

HER STRANGE ADVENTURES.

A recent cablegram announced

that tho little heiress Dorothy Knipe was on her way from Vancouver to Australia in charge of her father. A coupjo of mouths ago London papers told of tlio frantic offorts of Mrs. Rodoric K nij. of Melbourne, Australia, to discover, in London, some trace of her kidnapped nine-year-old daughter Muriel Doris Knipo. According to tho accounts, tho child, who is heiress to a considerable fortune, has been “twico carried off, upon a flight of twelve thousand miles on each occasion—once

from England to Australia, then from Australia to England. Now she has disappeared upon a third wandering, tho ultimate oml of which has yot to he discovered.” In December, 1904, it is added, Mrs Knipo and her husband and child camo to London. Amid disagreements which ensued, tlio father removed tho girl from tho mother’s dare. Mrs Knipo began logal proceedings, through lior solicitor, the Hon. Charles Russell, to regain access, and the father,who was ordered to produce the child, also employed a firm of solicitors and resisted the mother’s claim. After six or seven months of Chancery litigation, Mr Justice Buckley ordered that the mother have access to the daughter and that the father pay tho costs; but this was ineffectual ,as the child vanished before the decision was given.

Mrs. Knipo, hearing by cablegram that the father and the child had reached Melbourne, followed immediately and found them. The child had come to London originally with

her parents in the luxury of the P. and O. saloon. She had boon taken back in the lessor comfort of tho Orient steerage. A truce was agreed ui)on, and lasted a few months. But another flight across the ocean was awaiting the little heiress. One September morning mother and child disappeared from Melbourne, and sailing by a Blue Anchor liner, via Cape Colony and Las Palmas for England, reached London on 13tli November. The husband pursued the.fugitives. Suspecting this would happen, Mrs Knipo was laying plans to educate the child in the security of a convent konwn only, as she hoped, to herself. In consultation with her solicitor she decided temporarily upon Worthing, and Hie school which is controlled by tho Sistres of Notre Dame do Zion.

.The husband, to get a clue, kept a watch on Mrs. ICnipe’s bankers in the city, knowing she would have to come there for money. She came, and was told by one of the officials that Mr. ICnipe had been seen outside the bank. She hailed a hansom and drove away, changed to another hansom on the way, stopped at Marshall and Snelgrove’s, hurried through the shop and out by a different door, and drove; to the Queon’s Gate Hotel. The track, if it had been found, was undoubtedly lost. Mrs Ivnipc subsequently went to live herself at 'Worthing, and took there, from Bournemouth, her mother, as an additional sentry over the child. But Mi's. Knipe thinks the transference of tho mother, wliq must have been under surveillance, gave the pursuer his clue.' A few days afterwards at noon, tho little girl came gleefully out of the convent to meet her grandmottinr. A tall man, in a motor-pap, and heavy overcoat, with its collar turned up to tlio ears, suddenly pushed tho elderly lady aside, and exclaimed, “Come, Muriel,” lifted tho child, ran with her to the waiting landau, in which was a woman dressed like a widoiv and tho three were driven away/When the affrighted grandmother reached tlio cornel of the road she saw tho voliiclel going at a rapid pace. i)o Shoreham. The cabman lias given his name and address, and stated that he _ uncharged his fares at Shoreham Kailway Station. Since then Mrs, Knipo has not seen her daughter. So the ahqvo cablegram, if true, marks another stage ill this world-pursuit.