TRUST NOBODY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 73, 16 September 1911, Page 10

TRUST NOBODY.

| OBEYING A DYING COMMAND. I STRANGE STORY OF MOTHER AND I DAUGHTER. The last words of the dying are very properly regarded as sacred, writes a Milan correspondent, but undoubtedly there are occasions when death-bed exhortations should be obeyed not in the letter, but in the spirit. Such, however, was not the opinion of two natives of Ferrara, Maria Zeni, aged Go, and her daughter Emma, whose story provides the latest newspaper sensation. These two ladies are extremely wealthy, having inherited anything between £OO,OOO and £Bo,ooo'from the father of the elder and the grandfather of the younger. The testator, feeling, as'the moral tale has it, that his end was near, summoned his daughter and granddaughter to-his bedside, told them that they would inherit all his property, gave them his blessing, and added the admonition, which he emphasised by an extended and rhythmically beating forefinger: "Remember, confide in nobody, trust nobody, and never sign your names, never, never!" Then he died. The two women who remained to enjoy his fortune adopted his last words as the guiding maxim of their lives. They trusted nobody, and therefore employed no servants, their modest meals being sent in to them daily from a neighboring inn. Part of their'money was invested in mortgages, some of their property was leased, but in all their transactions they stedfastly refused to put their names to a piece of paper of any kind. In the savings bank they had a deposit of £4OOO, which on one occasion they required to draw out. Glad to get rid of his troublesome clients, the chief officer made the payment in the presence of our witnesses, and dispensed with the customary signed receipt. HOUSE BESEIGED. Recently a mortgagor sought the assistance of the law, and obtained a decree authorising him to pay the sum of £I2OO in redemption of a mortgage, and in this case the two ladies were burdened with the costs of the action. But they would neither receive the £I2OO nor pay the £2O costs due to the public Treasury.

However, the Treasury is an inexorable creditor, and soon a bailiff appeared at the ladies' house in the Via Volta and requested them to open the door so that he might distrain upon their goods. At the first word of the functionary the doors were barred and bolted and the windows were closed. Carabineers were summoned to enforce the decree of the laws. Still no response. Firemen came on the scene, and, hose in hand, prepared to take the house by assault. Two of them scaled the gate of the courtyard, the hose was put through a window, but the birds had flown to another part of the house. At last, while the door was being attacked with axes, a window was thrust open, and the terrified women thrust out their heads. "Open the door," said the bailiff, "we will do you no harm." "Go away," replied the ladies, "or we will throw ourselves out of the window." A jet of water caused them to withdraw from the window. Finally the door was beaten down, and the beseigers entered the citadel. The ladies, however, had vanished through Ihe back door, and were seen rushing towards the police station to demand assistance against "burglars." Then they went to a church, and throwing themselves before a statue of the Madonna, implored her. aid. Meanwhile the bailiff had carried out his task and left the building. The ladies returned unobserved, bolted and locked themselves in the house, and prepared to withstand another seige, as they were convinced by this time that the authorities were protecting a gang of malefactors who were trying to deprive thdm of their substance.