SON OR CHANGELING?

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 231, 1 December 1916, Page 7 (Supplement)

SON OR CHANGELING?

EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF A MAN WHO FAILED TO REPORT. A cur ous story that his parents, when lie was an infant, had exchanged li'in for another child, and that he was really un American, was put forward by Henry Reynolds, or Vernon, a music-hall artist, when he was charged at Bath (Eng.) with failink to report for military service. He said that a couple named Reynolds were bis foster parents, and that they had told him, 'is soon as Ik* was ohl enotrih, that he was born in America; and Mrs. Kate Reynolds, in support <■: this st:u-mc-iit, told en extraerdi 11; v -t,i:y. She declared that :> I'irih .tdicite which had been put in as that of Reynolds really related to her own child, from whom she parted when lie was a few weeks old. Afte--iwards she was persuaded to adopt " chil l. Remolds was that child, but she was not at liberty to disclose where !or own s.,i) was. It- was not her la t 1-1 iiv. and she hid -worn on a I - ; a; n-.-ver to divulge it. R ' .'- nobis", er Yeriion'>, parents, she !e- -- i; i 11, lionised to ree'aiui h'.M at the in-1 ii two years, i,ut laded to -To s O . and as >he ha i grown to love the child. ■ kept loin. iv. 'el. 11 w:s give!!, ho-.w-V. r. teat .Mr-. Keytiods was neve- without . . hi':! ill the hole--' for s;,; :. Ve-.i m -nth. al't- '• the b:ith of h r son, althooiii: had -w on thai s|«<. parted with her own child when a lew wiek- '■'•!; , ad nunth-T v. iir-.-s- sv. ;ie that Mrs. R".\ Holds' I,ad said that !e r sou was 1• ot go-in-' to bo a soldier if -lie I ( 'lid help it." The magistrates; finally said tiiey del not believe the story of Reynolds' American citizenship: but as he might have believed it himself, he was not lined, and only handed over to the military authorities. Military, service is joompulsory in Roumania. all men between twenty-one and forty-two being liable for service Infantrymen serve for two years and other arms three years, when t-lTe men are drain d into the first and second re-,-ervc lines.