THE LURE OF PRETTY THINGS.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 April 1921, Page 6

THE LURE OF PRETTY THINGS.

THEFT BY A GERMAN EMBASSY GOVERNESS.

Feb. 16. As he was walking through the Lingerie department of the Louvre, one of the great shopping centres of Paris, the other day, a detective saw rf well-dressed, middle-aged woman glance' furtively about her, and then secrete under her cloak an elaborately embroidered piece of feminine attire. He immediately arrested the woman, who was accompanied by two little girls of 10 and 12 respectively, and took her to a neighboring police station. There the woman and the little girls burst into tears, but between her sobs the inspector found out, to his surprise, that the culprit was one Fraulein Alsa Haussmann, governess to the daughters of Dr. Mayer, the German Ambassador, and that the weeping children were the daughters of the Ambassador himself. On account of the extra-territorial status of the Embassy, the usual French rules with regard to the verification of domicile were set aside, and a telephone message was sent to the Enjbassy, requesting the presence of an official to remove' the delinquent governess and her unfortunate little charges. One of the Attaches came up swiftly in a motor-ear, thinking that it must be a question of some anti-German incident, and was horrified to learnthat it was merely a case of vulgar theft. Fraulein Haussmann was promptly removed to the Embassy, where the Ambassador dismissed her on the spot, having her deported to Berlin the next day.