PARIS AT NIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 277, 22 November 1934, Page 20

PARIS AT NIGHT.

AMAZING STORIES. THE VANDERBILT CASE. MOTHER'S FIGHT. NEW YORK, October 10. Amazing stories concerning a member of America's Four Hundred, as the highest ranks in society are called, were told in a New York courtroom to-day as Mrs. Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt fought for the custody of her ten-year-old daughter, Gloria, who is heiress to £1,000,000. "Mrs. Vanderbilt alleged that her child was kidnapped by a nurse in Central Park and taken to the home of the child' 3 paternal aunt, Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney. Mre. Vanderbilt sat clothed from head to foot in black, with her pretty lips twisted in amused scorn, while she heard herself branded as a "dancing mother" who spent her time in Paris in a continuous round of pleasure, to the neglect of her baby. A Smile—a Frown. Her scornful smile turned to a frown of annoyance as Mrs. Emma Keislich, the nurse who is alleged to have kid-

napped little Gloria, accused the mother of intimacies with Prince Hohenlohe, a kinsman of the ex-Ivaiser, during a stay at Biarritz.

The nurse's story was brought out by a question by Mr. Herbert Smythe, counsel for Mrs. Laura Kilpatrick Morgan, Mrs. Vanderbilt's own mother, who is resisting her daughter's attempt to regain the custody of Gloria. "Prince Hohenlohe had a room in Mrs. Vanderbilt's villa at Biarritz," testified Mrs. Keislich in the hushed courtroom. "It was on the same floor as Mrs. Vanderbilt's room, and I frequently saw him visit her there." Early Morning Call. "Did you ever see anything intimate?" asked counsel. "That is rather a deli-

c-a-te question, I know, but the Court has got to hear about it." The nurse replied that .Mrs.. Morgan called her at two o'clock .one. morning, and they peered through the slightly open door of Mrs. Vanclerbilt's room. '"The prince and Mrs. Vanderbilt were together," she said, "scantily clad, and Mrs. Vanderbilt seemed to'be crying. "I used to see him in her roorii nearly every day, in the morning- or -the early afternoon. He used t6 read to-her." Mrs. Vanderbilt moved, to Paris soon after the death of her husband, Mr. Reggie Vanderbilt, and set up house ii} a fashionable part of the city. After that, said the nurse, she saw little of Mrs. Vanderbilt, and Gloria sawless. ■ - . "She would go out in the afternoon, rind I would not see her again until i ' <lx o'clock next morning. Then i »-..■■ 1 hear her come" "in with her J . all very gay." line of Mrs. Vanderbilt's friends Nurse Keislich described as "not of a gentlemanly type." ■ ■ In Paris, the nurse said, they,remained tor two bleak winters. An attic room became the nursery .and • the- -sleeping quarters of baby Gloria.

"It was cold and damp," she said vehemently, "and the whole place was full of rats. The child saw a rat 011 c mqruing . ajul was terribly frightened. The next day about thirty rats were cleaned out of the place." From the prim but determined lips of Nurse Keislich there then came a charge that Mrs. Vanderbilt's "poor little rich girl" was ill-treated, not only by her mother, but also by Prince Hohenlohe. The nurse said "Gloria cried when Prince Hohenlohe burned her with a cigaretts. "They told me it was an accident," the nurse declared. Went Visiting. She added that Gloria's health suffered owing to her mother's neglect. A doctor said she should be taken south, where she could have sunshine and a happy life. "Gloria was not taken south," said the nurse. "One winter Mrs. Vanderbilt packcd up and went to Maidenhead, England. Gloria-was left with me at a hotel that was insufficiently ' heated and had bad plumbing. "At the same time Mrs. Vanderbilt went visiting at the seat of Lord Furness, where Prince Hohenlohe presently appeared. "The following spring they came back to New York, but within a month Mrs. Vanderbilt returned to Europe. "She was summoned from Europs hurriedly in 1932, when Gloria underwent an operation in New York." "What (lid she say when she met the child at Newport ?" the nurse was asked. "So you had to get sick!" was the only comment, the nurse testified. The nurse then described a visit to Mrs. Vanderbilt's. home. "She was having a cocktail party," she said, "and she showed the child how to make a cocktail.; "Then Mr. Marks telephoned, and Mrs. Vanderbilt .went to the telephone, and I could hear her say: 'We are going to fight this case.' "Gloria was there and heard this, and she said; 'I hope the fight is not over me.'"