ALLEGED, JEWEL FRAUDS BY. A RUSSIAN LADY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5612, 25 March 1879, Page 3

ALLEGED, JEWEL FRAUDS BY. A RUSSIAN LADY.

:'■ (From Th/e Times.) Some eight or nine months since a statement went the round of the European Press that a certain Madame H4lbne Gajewska, a native of Russia, had committed a series'of considerable frauds in various parts of' the Continent, notably in Paris and Berlin, and lastly; in Berne, by obtaining loans on paste diamonds, and passing off ingeniously-made mock jewellery as genuine on numerous tr'adesi men of the cities in question. Among others, she was said to have victimised the Banque ; Fdddrale of Berfie. ' The total amount of her depredations was estimated to amount at the ‘very least to l,000,000f; and she was Bup;posed to have procured the dummy articles iwhich she had so extensively sold and pledged by false pretences, from a’house at Frankfort-on-tho-Maine. Sho was furthermore accused :of having;- with intent to';-deceive, assumed the title of countess, and represented herself as being on intimate terms with the Royal family of Russia. In April of this year Madame .Gajewska was surrendered by the Austrian police, who had arrested' her at Vienna, to the police of Berne, on the application of the Swiss Government, and her trial took place three days ago. It turning out that there'was only one plaintiff, Herr Woog, a money-lending jeweller, and the only fact he succeeded in proving being that he had advanced the prisoner various sums of money at the rate of 30 per cent, per month, the attempt to show that-she had misrepresented the value of the objects she had pledged most signally failed. Of two jewellers palled in by Herr Woog himself, one testified 'that,- a scertain pearT necklace was worth 20,000 fr. ; the other swore that, its utmost Value was 15,000 fr); and the official expert called in by the Court said it would be deatvat. 7000 f. I At this point the public prosecutor threw up his brief, and the jury were instructed to bring in a verdict of‘ acquittal. If Madame Gajewska be really innocent of, the offence laid to her charge—and it is to be, presumed she.is—she has certainly had very hard measures dealt out -to her, and is worthy, of: some oo'mmiseration. Owing to the dilatoriness of the Austrian police 'she was kept Jour’ months ■: ih prison in Vienna awaiting the completion ■;of -the''formal ties in connection with her surrender to the Swiss authorities, and she has been lockedHup -nearly . nine months at Berne pending the; preparations fef her trial. In point of fact she seems3to have suffered thirteen months’ imprisonment because three jewellers of Bernei Were; unable to agree as to the value of a pearl necklace. :; '