A Powerful Woman.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 68, 23 March 1901, Page 2

A Powerful Woman.

Paris, Jan. 26. Mrs Meredith Willard, an English woman, occupying the Versailles villa where Elsie De Wolfe and Mis 3 Marbury lived last summer, was the heroine of a thrilling adventure. Her husband had gone to London and the Willard children and maid were alone in one room, while Mrs Willard sat at the piano. Suddenly the garden door was shoved open by a rough-looking tramp, who said; “ You’re alone, ain’t you ? Well, don’t scream, or I’ll kill you. What do I want ? Why, your jewels and silver. Be quick about it.”

“Take the silver first. It’s there,” she said, pointing to the dining-room. The tramp walked thither, Mrs Willard following. Having him in front of her, the woman, who is six feet tall and a great athlete, suddenly grasped him by the throat, strangling him. “Don’t scream or I’ll kill you,” she said to the almost suffocated man.

Mrs Willard dragged the tramp to the garden'door. “Now go,” she said, hurling him outside. She heard the footstops of the .naan as he ran down the road.

This incident is the chief topic of conversation in the English-speaking colony.