HAIR CAUSES DEATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1938, Page 4

HAIR CAUSES DEATH

FATE OF A COUNTESS. TRAGEDY AT BRIGHTON. The story of a countess who, although wealthy, lived alone and feared intruders so much that she kept a revolver and always had the door of her flat secured by a stout chain, was told at a Brighton inquest. The woman, Mme. Eugenie de Parravicini, had said that she was an Italian countess and the widow of a political agent, Stefano Annoni de Parravicini. Very few people, and never any women, were allowed in the flat in Montpeher Crescent. In spite of her 84 years, Mme. de Parravicini retained traces of beauty, and went about the flat with her hair hanging almost to her waist. It was her beautiful hair, coupled with the fact that she chose to cook a meal over a gas ring at three o’clock in the morning, that led to her death. As she bent down to pick up the frying pan her hair brushed the lighted gas and burst into flames. She was severely burnt about the face and head, and died a week later. The verdict was “Death by misadventure.”