WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 10, 6 July 1911, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). CHANGELING OR COUNT? ROMANCE OF A VAST FORTUNE AXD TITLE. Berlin, May 14. The Supreme Court of the Empire has decided a romantic and mysterious case, in which many members of the German aristocracy are interested, by deciding that the boy known as .Joseph Kwilecki is the son of Countess Isabella Kwilecki, and the heir to the family fortune and estates in Poland.

Tbe effort to establish the legitimacy of Count Joseph Kwilecki resulted in litigation extending over a period of years, and the revelation of a story which is more liKe a plot in a novel than a succession of facts affecting living per-

sonages. The four central figures of this strange affair are:— Count Joseph Kwilecki. now fourteen years of age, tue only son and heir of Count Ignaz Kwilecki. Cecilia Mayer, a Galician peasant woman, who was formerly the wife of a railway navvy, and who after her husband's deatli earned a precarious living by manual field, labor. Count Ignaz Kwilecki, a great Polish nobleman, aged 70 years, who claims to be the father of Count Joseph Kwilecki. Count Hector Kwilecki, a distant cousin, who claims the inheritance of the family estates on grounds that Count Joseph Kwilecki is not a Kwilecki at all, but the son of Cecilia Mayer. Count Ignaz Kwilecki and his wife, Countess Isabella Kwilecki, who occupied a very prominent position among the Polish aristocracy, were for many years disappointed in their hopes of a son and heir, .the lack of whom meant that the family estates, all of which are strictly entailed, would, after the death Of Count Ignaz, pass to Count Hector Kwilecki, a distant cousin. Count Ignaz and Countess Isabella Kwilecki had three daughters, but the conditions of the family entail necessitated that they should be left on one side until there were no more male members of the entire Kwilecki family. The death of Count Ignaz would thus have plunged Countess Isabella and her three daughters into atisolute poverty. When Countess Isabella Kwilecki was 51 years of age an announcement was issued to the effect tjuit she had given birth to a son on January -27, 1807. This baby was alleged to be the Count Joseph Ivwileeki, whose fate has now been decided by the Supreme Court of the Empire. The legal contest began soon after the boy's bir.tli, when Countess Isabella Kwilecki was accused of having obtained the baby from another woman to pass it off as her own son, with the criminal intention of depriving Count Hector Kwilecki of his rightful inheritance of the family esta'cs, and thereby securing to herself the entailed revenue during the minority of her alleged child. Count Hector Kwilecki employed a small army of detectives, and in the course of their enquiries they brought to light many strange facts. Countess Isabella, instead of remaining at her magnificent home to give birth to her child, travelled to Berlin and rented a small flat. At the time of the birth she refused to summon any doctor, but was attended by several elderly Polish women who had been domestic servants [ in her household for many years. I Count Hector Kwilecki spent three j years in collecting incriminating material, and then initiated an action demanding that the High Court of Posen should adjudge the intant to be an interloper and neither the rightful son of the Countess Isabella Kwilecki nor the legitimate heir to the Kwilecki estates. The case was tried in 1901, when the boy was four years of age, and he was brought into court to show the alleged remarkable likeness between his own features and those of the Countess Isabella. The High Court at Posen rejected Count Hector Kwijecki's claim, and ruled that there were insufficient proofs to warrant the denial of Countess Isabella's motherhood. Count Hector Kwilecki then pressed the public prosecutor to take action, and the array of evidence laid before tnat official seemed to be so overwhelming that he ordered the arrest of Countess Isabella and her husband, as well as the Polish servants who were in attendance upon her at the time of the alleged birth. The trial of Count Ignaz and Countess Isabella Kwilecki, and of their three servants, took place in Berlin in 1.903, and) ended in the acquittal of all the prisoners. I Count Hector Kwilecki persuaded Ce-| cilia Mayer, the alleged rightful mother ) of the boy, to bring an action in the J civil court for the recovery of the child. Count Hector luvilecki made no secret of the fact that he supplied her with the necessary money to pay the costs of this action. The action was first heard in the Civil Court at Posen, and the counsel who appeared on behalf of little Count Joseph Kwilecki argued that Cecilia Mayer could not possibly be the mother of the, boy, because if she were, she would! | naturally desire to see him tbe heir to magnificent est-ates, living in comfort and luxury among the great ones of the land, instead of endeavoring to drag him down from his high position and reduce him to beggary in a peasant's hut. The Posen Court gave judgment j against Cecilia Mayer, but Count llectori Kwilecki succeeded in accumulating new. evidence, and another trial took place, | before the Civil Court at Breslau. There, again, judgment was given against Cecilia Mayer, but Count Hector Kwilecki appealed against this decision. The High Court at Posen, sitting on December 20. 1!)0!), over-ruled all previous judicial decisions, and adjudged the boy known as Count Joseph Kwilecki, the only son and heir of Count Ignaz Kwilecki, to be in reality the son of the (ialician peasant woman, Cecilia Mayer. At the same time, the court issued a judicial order directing Count Ignaz Kwilecki to hand over the boy to Cecilia Alaver. This step, however, was not neI cessarv, owing to the fact that Count

Tgnaz Kwilecki immediately gave notice of appeal. Seven judges of the supreme tribunal at Leipzig heard the appeal. They die not order a new trial, but simply cancelled the ruling of the High Court at Posen. The decision of the Supreme Court is absolutely final; so that Joseph's identity as the, real Count Kwilecki is definitely established. Count Ignaz Kwilecki, Joseph's aged fiVther, was the only member of the family present when judgment was delivered. He was deeply affected. The overwhelming sorrow at the decision of the High Court at Posen in depriving her of the boy, and indirectly of adjudging her a criminal, led to the death of Countess Isabella Kwilecki in February, ;1.91<„, at the age of 64 years.

A WOMAN'S DETERMINATION The Sydney Sun declares that there was at least one woman in London who was determined to see the Coronation, procession. At 10 o'clock on the morning before Coronation Day she could be seen in St. James' Park making her way towards a spot that commanded a fine view of the route along which the great pageant would come. That she had conic to stay was evident from the load of things under which she struggled along. In one hand she carried a camp-stool, a kettle, and a spirit lamp, and in tho other a hamper basket big .enough to hold a week's provisions, while over her shoulder was thrown a heavy rug. Reaching the site of her "cam])," she unburdened herself of all her goods and chatties, and with a sigh of relief settled down for a long and weary wait of nearly thirty hours. Hosts of other people followed, and at midnight the parks were crowded with campers.

A NERVE CURES. Needlework as a nerve cure is once: again advocated by a nerve specialist, who says that in office life men ought to play ball every now and then for a few minutes, and women ought to keep a piece of knitting in a drawer, and do a little of it at intervals. This is all very well supposing the woman happens to like knitting. If she does not it is worse tlian nothing, and, besides, bears 1 an appalling resemblance in some ways to typewriting. Why should not the woman play fall, too, or skip? It would give them exercise, and do for them all the things it does for men. But questions of space are likely to arise, for, as Mr. Eustace Miles asks, in how many sitting rooms can one skip in comfort? The pictures of the home as a place of refuge and the office as a place of application, are rather disturbed by these visions of clerks playing ball, and masters and mistresses skipping at home. The trouble with all tnese "cures" is that there are so many people who would be so much annoyed by them that they would get no good from them.