SINGULAR CASE.

Thames Star, Issue 3417, 4 December 1879, Page 4

SINGULAR CASE.

The following curious case (action for illegal distress) was heardiu the Court of Common Picas, on July 17. The plaintiff, "CatherilPGßolland, Countess of Heinruetb," was of Irish extraction. She first married a Prussian ofliqer; secondly, Mr Hicks, a justice of the peace for the county of Gloucester; and, as she owned, thirdly, during bis lifetime, Augustus Holland, major in the French army, from whom she procured a divorce ia December, 1870. Being engaged in litigation for the recovery of some property, she left for New York in 1872, having executed on September 25 a bill of sale to Charles ITurber to secure an advance from him of £400, from which he had deducted £40 for interest at 20 per cent, for six months. This defendant was a money lender, and voder the power of the bill, seized and gold the goods assigned thereby. Irregularities, non-advertisement, negligence, j and excessive sale were charged against the other defendants, the auctioneers, Messrs Furber and Price, and that they had not accounted for nor handed over the surplus of the proceeds after paying the advance and all their costs. *:The crossexamination of the plaintiff elicited frank admissions that she had been pronounced to hate committed perjury and forgery in lier American litigation by the Judge who tried her cause ; that she had bigamously married Major .Holland, with Mr Hicks's knowledge and consent; he indeed, " had seen them off together in the railway ;'' and as to a letter from Mr U icks' to her commencing " My dearest wife " and concluding " Kemember me most kindly to Holland's wife," she owned "That is me." She had borne two children while married to the major, which were by "another man." These twins she had endeavored to provide with a father by charging four different persons with their paternity. Cardinal Manning, when a plain priest, had been her confessor, and. she kept a cafe in Edgeware road. Among the Hems in her "gallery of valuable paintings," " an allegorical subject" by .Rubens realised £1 10s; another by . the same master, " Belisarius," £18s; a Murillo, £8; a head by Eembrandt,:l4s ; " a head of a saint," lay Caracci, Us ; " a bookcase of Irish manufacture of an early^date," £6; "a superbly sculptnred reclining figure in ■tatuary marble," £1 los; the whole of the choice and costly collection, togetln-r •with the furniture, fetching £1017. The unabashed announcement by the fair plaintiff that the deceased Hicks counived in the manner described at her bigamy exhausted the patience of the Court. Lord Coleridge : .Really, how long am I and the jury to he insulted by bearing this woman's perjuries ? (To the jury) Gentlemen, do you believe a word she says ? The jury : JNot one word. Verdict aud judgment for the. defendants.