DELUDED HEIRESS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLII, Issue 1, 2 January 1908, Page 6

DELUDED HEIRESS.

AMERICAN LADY'S MARRIAGE TO BOGUS ITALIAN COUNT

ROME, Nov. 7. Instead of marrying, as she thought, Count Gennaro di Castlemeriardo, of a distinguished Neapolitan family, Miss Edith van Buren has m reality tied herself to a clever scoundrel, whose real name is Gennaro Vessiechio, and who, besides being a, notorious Camorr.ist, is an incorrigible ex-convict,'still subject to police , surveillance.'' This crushing revelation was made by the chief of the police before the Naples Court of Appeal to-day, when a young heiress, belonging to a well-known and wealthy American family, sued for separation. The young lady had made hsr husband s acquaintance casually at Nice a year ago. His elegant, fascinating manners and passionate professions of love resulted in an engagement. Miss van Buren made enquiries by letter about the Castelmenardo family and received excellent reports, but, as she •discovered when too late, her bogus count had no relations whatever with the genuine aristocratic house of that name. Under various pretexts her husband left her to pay all the hotel and other expenses of their honeymoon", and immediately after began squandering her fortune at the Monte Curio gambling tables. Wishing to legalise her married name, the wife panel £1000 to procure her husband a genuine title of nobility, and in return he shortly after abandoned her for a demi-inondaine. Vessicchio strenuously opposed the grant-of a separation to-day, but the judges unanimously decreed in the wife's favour, though the absence of divorce laws in Italy awkwardly hampers the lady's future.