QUEEN OF THE GIPSIES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 130, 3 June 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

QUEEN OF THE GIPSIES.

REVIVAL OF AN OLD STORY.

. At Clerkenwell Police Court, London, on Wednesday, April 19, a mid-dle-aged woman, of olive complexion and raven-black hair, applied to Mr Horace Smith for advice, handing up the following statement: — 'Could your honor be kind enough to advise me (I am a ward in Chancery) how I can get a solicitor to take up my case? I have no money, still I am a heiress. A suit is now proceeding in the. High Court between Granger and Sowerbitts in respect of property belonging to me. I was stolen from the cradle when six weeks old, and I did not know until two years ago to whom I belonged. If I had asolicitor, I should be able to prove my title as Queen of the Gipsies of all the earth against Molly Friar, who at present holds the throne. I have been changed with another, by name Esther Chamberlain. My clothes were taken off me i in 1846. I was tied in a cloth a-nd thrown overboard from a collier's vessel in Wa.pping' Basin. I was rescued. A person who witnessed it is alive, and can come forward to prove the statement. The person at whose place I lay for three days insensible j is also alive. I am the lost child known as the Queen of the Gipsies of all the earth.' The applicant further asserted in her note that the .Esther Chamberlain referred to was the daughter of Mr Joseph Chamberlain. Mr Horace Smith: I don't know that I can assist you.—-The applicant: I have no money, and I am lost with-' out it. Mr Horace Smith: You can make any application you like to any of the authorities.— The applicant: A party is wanted for a murder. Mr Horace Smith: The police will listen to any applicant you may make. The applicant said her name was Mrs Brooks. Her mother, Gerty Hart, was a gipsy lady, and her father, John Clarence Wegg, a gentleman. Her heirloom chain —worth many thousand pounds sterling— contained three large emeralds, and this valuable ornament and a case j containing seven rings, were at pre- I sent being held by Phillimore Lee, gipsy horse dealer, who lived in South i Canterbury, New Zealand. The es- j tate the applicant claimed was known j as Palmer's estate, and was situate , near Ascot. She was, she declared, \ the stowaway girl, the rescued child, j and the lost child known as the right j and legal Queen of the Gipsies of all j the earth. What she really required j was the name of the paper or papers ! containing the full account of the death and funeral of the Queen of the \ Gipsies named Lee, the last of her ! race. The accounts, she believed, ap- j pearecl about eight years ago. If these were forthcoming, she could produce other proofs that Molly Friar had no right to the title of Queen of j the Gipsies. She added that she (ap- i plicant) was a ward in Chancery through the disputed marriage of her great-grandmother (Sweeney).