FROM CASTLE TO COTTAGE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 314, 14 February 1910, Page 6

FROM CASTLE TO COTTAGE

PEASANT BOY SMUOfi.-.i-D INTO NOBLE FAMILY. A TRAGIC VERDICT. Berlin, December 20. "The Tragedy of Little Count Kwilecki" would be a suitable title for a romance in real life which is now, after many years of legal contests, nearing its conclusion. To-day the High Court at Posen adjudged the boy who is' the central figure of this thrilling story, and who has been brought up as Count Joseph Kwilecki, the only son and heir of Count Ignacius Kwilecki, to be in reality the son of an Austrian' peasant woman named Cecilia Meyer, the widow of a railway navvy. After giving judgment to this effect the court made an order directing Count Ignacius Kwilecki to hand over the boy, who is now thirteen years of age, to his rightful mother, the peasant woman Cecilia Meyer. Neither the verdict nor the order of the court came into force immediately, because Count Ignacius Kwilecki has already given notice of appeal, and the case will in due cours'e come before the Supreme Court of the Empire at Leipzig. The Supreme Court of the Empire, however, can only revise the formalities oi tnis trial, ana, u necessary, order a new trial by the High Court if it be found that irregularities have occurred in this one. If this happened the great legal contest might drag on for several years more, but if the Supreme Court of the Empire confirms the judgment of the High Court at Posen little Count Joseph Kwilecki's fate will 'be sealed within a lew months.

It would be a veritable tragedy for the boy, who has been brought up in the magnificence of a wealthy Poiis'h nobleman's castle, would be compelled by law to exchange his feudal home for the miserable hut of a poverty-stricken, uneducated, and coarse peasant woman. The little Count, now the heir to great estates and vast wealth, would be face to face with the necessity of earning his own living after the manner of his plebeian forefathers, the field laborers of darkest Galicia.

Count Ignacius Kwilecki and his wife, Countess' Isabella, were the parents of three daughters, but the longed-for son was not born to them, much to their distress, because the lack of a male heir meant that the family estates, which are entail?' 1 , would ;>:'*■■; to a distant cousin, Count Hector' Kwilecki, on the death of Count Ignacius, who is the head of the family. The loss of the family estates meant more to Countess Isabella, who has squandered the rich dowry she brought her husband in extravagant living, and would have become practically penniless on her husband's death unless she had a son who would become the next possessor of the property. On 27th. January, ISD7, Countess' Isabella Kwilecki, then fifty-one years of age, gave birth to a son—at least an announcement to this effect was issivd to the newspapers and to all the members of the Kwilecki family. Soon, however, rumors of foul play became current, and the Countess Isabella was accused of having procured the baby from some other mother in order falsely to pass* it off as her own son. Those members of the Kwilecki family who would be disinherited by the birth of this heir took the matter up and investigated all the strange circumstances of the alleged birth. It was pointed out that the Countess, instead of remaining in the ancestral castle for the happy event, travelled to Berlin, and rented an apartment, where she declined medical aid and was tended only by several Polish servants. The alleged father, Count Ignacius', was absent in the south of Europe, and there were other strange circumstances which gave ground for the suspicions entertained by the relatives. Relatives of the Count brought the ease in court and financed the peasant mother, who has now obtained a verdict for the return of the boy. Later. The Count is now making proper provision for the boy's future.