MISCELLANEOUS

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1927, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS

(Australian it N.Z. Cable Association.)

ROAIANTIC CLAIM

HOW ALAiD KAY ED MERRY MONARCH.

LONDON. June 19

The claim to Alary l.epine’s fortune will probably come on for hearing in the Chancery Division of the High Court, next week.

One of the chief claimants is Jessie Mason, who lives in a Most End flat with her two sisters, and who says that she is descended from the Jane Lane, who saved the hie ol Charles II after the Battle of Worcester. It is recorded that Charles, disguised as Jane Lane’s servant, r ale before her to Bristol through several hands of soldiers who were searching for him. The Attorney-General "'ill oppose the claim, pleading the Statute of I.imitations and the Intestacy Act-

Mary Lepine was a native ol Portsmouth. and in 1,92 her estate wavalued at £53.000. H lias been in Chancery since, and is now estimated to he worth many hundreds ot thousands sterling. The claimants include Viscount Bangor, an Irish Peer, several Londoners, anil a Californian, "ho declare that they are her descendants.

WITCH’S ADVICE. LAON. May 18

A remarkable arsenic poisoning ease has just ended at the assizes here with the condemnation of Mine. Gabrielto Mil rebuild iso, to ten years’ imprisonment for attempting to murder her husband. Louis, a wealthy cattle breed-

Mine. Merchandise appeared in the dock, a typically robust (armors wile, while her husband, pallid and halfparalysed from the poisoning, was carried into court on a chair. Evidence showed that Mme. Marohaiidi.se had grown to dislike her husband early in her married life, and to love his younger brother. Pierre. According to her own confession, she stole out of the farmhouse one night when there wa.s a new moon and went to consult a local '‘witch. ‘What must 1 do to get rid of my husband?” site asked the witch. ‘•Poison him,” was the immediate reply.

Mine Mnrchandise went to the local veterinary surgeon, and telling him that a horse was ill. obtained a proscription containing arsenic. 'lbis she took to ten chemists. Each gave her a packet of the poison, which day after day she give her husluuul in his morning coffee. ”1 gave it to him only six times” she pleaded to the judge. Her counsel tried to obtain from her husband a word of pardon and mercy, hut in vain. ‘‘l cannot pardon her,” was the answer. ‘‘l was a strapping voting man of 39 when I married her and look at me now !’’

LONDON, July 4. WELLINGTON. July 4. The breaking of a filiment in a transmitting valve at Kipsheuvel station delayed the official opening of the South African beam service, and held tip a message from the G ivern-or-General Earl Athlon? to rhe King for half an hour. His Majesty replied that lie was convinced that “every invention like beam, designed to overcome distance, is of the greatest value in promoting a mutual understanding between nations of my Empire.”