A CURIOUS STORY.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 138, 19 April 1879, Page 3

A CURIOUS STORY.

A most remarkable and sensational lawsuit is shortly to come before the Paris tribunals. A young man, who lived in a small town in the wilds of the Russian steppes many years ago, gradually improved in his business until at length he engaged on the Bourse as the great Monsieur Meyer Garfunkel, the happy possessor of a fortune of several million francs. He had married a Muscovite of rare beauty—Mdlle. Rosalie Loury—and he ended by adopting another Mdlle. Loury, whom his wife gave out to bo her sister. In 1876 Monsieur Garfunkel died, leaving the bulk of his fortune to his wife and to his adopted daughter, but excepting therepfrom the sum of'kiie million and a half francs, which was bequeathed to Madame Rabinovitz, living in the town ofßodmizin Russia. Madame Rabinevitz, however, now declarer herself to be the only daughter of Monsieur Garfunkel, by a. widow named Taoulo, whom he wedded in his poorer days, when he was known as Meyer ; and on rife strength of it she claims not merely (he million and a half left her by Monsieur GaifuhLel, but also the money bequeathed to the Lourys. It appears that according 1o the French law as well as the Russian, no one is allowed to adopt a child while he has one still living. Hence Monsieur Garfunkel’s act was utterly illegal, supposing .Madame Rabinovitz, or Rebecca, as she was called, to have been his child.