CARD-SWINDLING CASE,

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 89, 17 April 1911, Page 7

CARD-SWINDLING CASE,

COUNT WOLFF-METTERNICH. By Telegraph.— Prest Association.— t2opyrijl»». (Received April 17, 9 a.m.) | ; BERLIN, 16th April. Count Wolff-Metternich, arrested in December in. conneotion with alleged i card-swindling, has been sent to a hos- | pital with a view to ascertaining his mental condition. [High play at rogue et noir in a London hotel led to the arrest in Vienna- of the young Count Gisbert WoUf-Mettornich, aged twenty -four, a nephew of the German Ambassador in London. Count Metternioh, who was engaged as secretary ta a motor-car factory, three months earlier married a favouriteViennese musical-comedy actress. H<j was arrested in bed at eight o'clock iv the morning, and, as a Prussian subject, j was transf erred into tho charge of the j German police. The charge against him i& alleged complicity in a gambling | swindle and was laid by a German ar- j tillery lieutenant stationed at Metz, j named Backhaus. Lieutenant Backhaus j alleges that while on leave in London j last summer he made the acquaintance of the count together with two other men. Accompanied by his new friends, Lieutenant Backhaus visited the "fcights" of London. They dined at an hotel and after dinner played at rouge et noir, using matches as counters. At first the lieutenant won. lb was then agreed, he says, that he and Count Mettemieh should hold the bank together. They lost £700. Lieutenant Backhaus, having no money to pay his j share, the count handed a cheque for ! the whole sum to their opponents. Lieutenant Backhaus saw little more of his companions, and shortly afterwards returned to his garrison at Metz. On receiving later an emphatic request from Count Metternich for the repayment of the £350 advanced to him, he conceived certain suspicions and informed the police. Further allegations are mado against Count Metternich — th,afc he obtained a valuable pin on credit from a London jeweller by falsely representing himself to be a member of the German Embassy, and that he fraudulently withheld tfro proceeds of the sale of a horse belonging to a lady in Berlin. The count's own statemeut with reference to the rouge et noir affair is that both he and Lieutenant Backhaus were duped by the two other players. The apprehension of Count Wolff-Mett-e-rnich was followed by the arrest in Berlin of an alleged associate of the count's, calling himself Baron Corff-Konig, whose real name is said by the newspapers to be Julius Steinmann.]