GERMAN SCANDAL

A PRINCE'S TITLE AND FORTUNE

A DRAMATIC STORY,

(UNWED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.)

(AUSTRALIAN . NSW 3BALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, Bth October. The Daily Express's correspondent at Berlin tells a dramatic story of a Grand Duke kidnapping and incarcerating his cousin in a lunatic asylum in order to force his cousin to renounce his princely rights, which was revealed in Court at Glatz (Silesia). The Grand Duke Wilhelm Ernst was charged by the former Prince Hermann of Saxe Weimar with compelling him to relinquish his title and claim to a fortune oi between £4,000,000 and £5,----000,000. When the Prince was a youth he was in a crack German cuirassier re-_ giment, and he contracted big gambling debts and fled to London, where he married an Italian singer, whom he divorced. The Prince then went to Paris, where he lived in wild dissipation. The Grand Duk« intervened, and told Hermann's mother that the youth would be expelled from Paris, unless sh% brought him to Germany. The mother became frightened and brought her son to Mannheim, where he was handed over to his tutor, who drove him to the asylum of Hohenmark. \ There he wag placed behind iron bars and kept like a wild bea-st until he yielded to the Grand Duke's demand. After lie had seized his cousin's birthright the Grand Duke paid his cousin £1000 per year. Hermann changed his name to Count Ostheim and lived at Swended breeding horses. Hermann is now suing for the return of his estate.