AN EXTRAORDINARY CAREER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2207, 28 May 1891, Page 4

AN EXTRAORDINARY CAREER.

A very handsome young Englishwoman has just for the second time fallen into the hands of the French police . for practising what may be called the marriage trick. When, in 1887, she was first arrested she was at her thirteenth marriage, but now she is in possession of no fewer than 43 husbands. Her method of procedure remarks, a London contemporary, was as simple as it was ingenious. She put into the journals stating that a,widow, possessing a fortune of 1,200,000 f, wished to marry a gentleman in good circumstances, belonging to the-nobility nr to the high commercial, class. Naturally the woman took , a different name every time.’ Oh receiving the applicants she always commenced by making some objection, . Sometimes, assuming the character of an ingenious miss, she said that, after all, her mother considered she was too young for mrariage, and that the applicant must if he loved her wait awhile. On other occasions the fortune or the social position of the suitor was not what she desired. But in the end she always allowed herself to be -captivated with the personal qualities of her would-be husbands. ' he often managed things so cleverly that she received rich presentsfrom her suitors, and after getting as much as she could she suddenly disappeared. In mostcases, however, she consiered it better policy to secure pojpfefsiou of the wedding gifts by going; through*the marriage ceremony. For this she invariably crossed the Channel. After the clergyman had in all good faith pronounced the nuptialibjepedictipn she returned with her victim to the. hotel, and always managed to disappear in the course of the wedding day, but never leaving her wedding gifts behind her. Her lasi exploit, which led to her- arrest at the Hotel Meurice, Rue del Rivoli, was with & certain noble- Viscount, who had pretty well ruined himself through gambling, and who was anxious to regild bis ajmorial bearings with the 1,200,000 f o ; f the charming widow it would eyer seem that he was really in love with the adventuress, for he travelled with her and her companion in England, Belgium, Norway, Ac. It was, of course, the Viscount who paid a|l expenses, and by borrowing money right and left on his expectations, made his fiancee rich presents 1 wherever they went, At last,hack in \

Paris, the viscount insisted on having the day fixed for the wedding, but to no avail. The lady was inexorable. He must wait. T his fact at last awakened the suspicions of the viscount who laid his case before M. Goron, the chief of the detectives. When the officers presented themselves at the Hotel Meurice, the fiancee was greatly astonished, but followed them bravely. As for her companion and accomplice, she was absent from the hotel and has not been seen there again.