PRINCESS' JEWELS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 13, 18 August 1911, Page 8

PRINCESS' JEWELS.

I PAS'IE SUBSTITUTED BY TH Ai xF. Tlie trial of an Englishwoman named Johanna Markowski, accused of stealing Princess Fuerstenberg's jewels, concluded at the Vienna Criminal Court ;' on June 28. Markowski was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment. The accused, a slim woman who had evidently seen better days, told a pathetic story. The daughter of an English officer in a crack regiment, she had come to Austria after he_r ~ father's death as nurse to a nobleman's family. Here she met Markowski, whom she married in spite of the opposition of her relatives. Markowski took to drink, ill-treated her and her only child, and finally deserted them. She and her child were reduced to the severest straits. She gave lessons, bat, unable to earn enough to feed her child, accepted a loan from a bookmaker named White. White afterwards lost mouey on the turf and demanded his money back. She could not give it to him, and he then persuaded her to visit her husband, who was porter to Prince Fuersteuberg and in charge of the jewellery, and take the valuables. White substituted paste diamonds for the real stones, which he pawned. The theft was only discovered months later, when the Princess sent the jewellery to be cleaned. Inquiries that have been made con- ' firm the woman's statement.