GIRL IMPOSTOR'S FATE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10035, 4 May 1910, Page 7

GIRL IMPOSTOR'S FATE.

• —— I £2,000. LEGACY THAT CAME TOO | LATE. The strange career of Mis 3 Henrietta Fox Slrurgway, who. in the character of a niece o£ the Earl _ of lirhester, once played a brief but prominent part in New York and Philadelphia society, came to a tragic end in t\u Fitllevua Hospital, where she breathed her last half an hour be- ; fore her lawyer learned that a legacy ,1 of £2,000 was awaiting her in Ire-| land. .; In the direst financial straits, Miss : Strangway ten days before her death ; was arrested f?r passing a worthless j cheque in payment of an hotel bill. I On the way to the police station ; she swallowed poison, the effects of which have proved tatal. Miss Strangway in 1907 captivated i New York society by her charming manners. A brilliant and witty conversationalist, widely travelled, and an accomplished linguist, she was received everywhere with open arms. Then followed the disgrace of her ar rest and imprisonment in 1907 for cheating a number of fashionable hotels and dressmaking establishments In the Tombs prison phe wrote a pathetic defence duct, alleging that she never posed as ■ a relative of the earl, and never consciously cheated. She reappeared in 1909 in the character of Miss Helen urumrrlond. and made the most influential acquaintances, none of whom thought of identifying her with the hapless Miss Strangway. As a Suffragette lecturer she had for several months

a successful career, interviewing Mrs Taft and many eminent women for various New YorK papers. Extravagance finally brought her to borrow more money, she had been, since the beginning of the year, at the point of starvation. For two years the unfortunate woman had awaited the settlement of the estate of an aunt in Ireland.