AVENGING HER FATHER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 97, 10 September 1912, Page 3

AVENGING HER FATHER.

"Fraulein Jlirtl, Hie daughter of a colonel in tin* Austrian army, has 'been put on trial for assaulting her father's superior officer, Lieutenant Field-Mar-'shal von Boroevic, the commander of an army corps," says the Standard. ''The affair has caused much -sensation- as it brings into sharp relief some of the evils of the Austrian military (regulations under which junior officers are forbidden to marry unless the bride can deposit the prescribed dowry, -which varies from £2OO 'for a lieutenant's wife to £750 to that of a major. Twenty yeitrs ago Lieutenant Ilirtl fell in love with a penniless girl, and. apparently, in the hope, that the regulations might' be one day relaxed, tlie pair joined their lives witliout any religious ceremony. The union was a happy one, three children | were born, and when Ilirtl recently attained the rank of a colonel, when no, dowry, but only a formal permission to marry is necessary, he applied for leave to marry his faithful companion, as this would, under Austrian law, also make his : children legitimate. The field-marshal, however, refused this [permission, told Colonel ffirtl that he had best send in his papers, and declined to have any social relations with him. This interview ] took place just before a dinner of the (lariison at Munkaes. and Colonel Ilirtl. instead of attending, went home, and told his family what had happened. His eldest daughter, wlio is 18 years of age, was so furious father and mother that she went at once to the hotel where the dinner was taking placG, and in the vestibule slapped the general's face in the presence of several officers."