THE FALSE HEIRESS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 292, 9 December 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE FALSE HEIRESS.

j ADVENTURES OF A COUNTRY SERVANT IN LONDON. The escapades of a domestic servant I masquerading- as an heiress were related !at the Marylebone Police Court on Noj vember 14, when a smart-looking young woman, of no fixed abode or occupation, ! named Kate Green.-alias Mrs Arnold, was charged with■ obtaining money, goods, and board and lodging' by false pretences. The prisoner is the daughter of a poor, I but respectable, carman at North Wali sham, and five years ago was servant to John Dixon, clerk, to Mr Wilkinson, solicitor and overseer of the parish. Of lateyears, however, she has been leading a questionable life. According- to the statement of Mr Sims, who appealed foivthe Public Prosecutor, the prisoner In July las); took lodgings in Gower-street in the naino of Mrs Gordon, and after a sho.rt time decamped without payhlg her bill. The same clay she went to a fashionable boarding- house in Princes-street, Regent-street, and engaged rooms, saying- her husband was shortly arriving from the country with her luggage. The luggage' did not arrive, and five days afterwards she'left WITHOUT NOTICE OPv PAYMENT • of her account, leaving behind her a cheap wooden box, which, on being opened, was found to contain two articles of underclothing and a couple of heavy paving blocks. Before decamping' she became acquainted with certain solicitors and doctors in London—about ten gentlemen in all—to whom she represented; herself as the daughter of a man who had just died in North Walsham, leaving her £10,000 and some sixteen or seventeen houses, and that Mr Wilkinson, who was the trustee, had advised her to place her affairs in the hands of a respectable London solicitor to act for her. She expressed a desire—in the case of the solicitors—that they should act for her, after which she Intimated that she was short of cash. In each instance she obtained a sum of money, varying from £2 to £10, in exchange for which she gave an 1.0. U. ; . All her statements, said Mr Sims, were absolutely false. Last September, it was further stated, the adventuress made the acquaintance of Byron Douglas, a theatrical agent, and used his name "to obtain BY FALSE PRETENCES a cheque book from the City and Midland Bank. The same day she bought a five-guinea hat at a shop in Regent-st, and a veil to .match for 10/, tendering in payment a. cheque signed "Kate Read." which was duly presented and dishonoured. She also endeavoured on the same day to obtain from Messrs Swan and Edgar' goods of the value of £8 8/, and from another West-end firm articles of the value of £23 by the same means. The cashier in each instance, however, was not satisfied, with the result that in one case she hurried from the shop while . inquiries were being made, and in the other she walked indignantly out of the shop, saying she would not be insulted < in that way—other people had honoured her cheques. She was subsequently arrested at Liverpool on charges of obtaining money by means of similar cheques from various solicitors. Corroborative evidence having been given, the adventuress was committed for trial. —■-- ■■■ —__.________ i -i-i-«'« ■-*—_—__■__— rimnt ri__u____^ ■