A Lady Swindler.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 237, 20 December 1888, Page 3

A Lady Swindler.

A London correspondent writesMr G. B. Sims, the well-known novelist, moralises instructively upon Mrs Gordon Baillie, whose adventurous career has been stopped for a time by a sentence of five years’ penal servitude. I give Mr Sims’ words in full because I think they are quite worth it. He says Mrs Gordon (Old) Bailly has wound up her career of swindling with a blaze oi fireworks. The stories told by the police officials of her life and adventures read like a romance. The marvel is that with the woman’s transparent humbug, she ever sueneeded in imposing upon anyone of ordinary intelligence. When I knew Mrs Gordon O. B. she called herself Mrs Knight Aston. She came to me one day in Gower-streot—it is now some years ago—with a long rigmarole about the great success her husband had made in comic opera in Australia, and she offered me £5OO ,for the Australian right of •• The Merry Duchess,” which was then playing at the Royallty. I didn’t like the lady’s manner, She talked much too big, and her tongue went at such a rate that it was difficult for me to get a word in edge ways, I saw at once that she was not a desirable customer,’and politely choked her off, but she returned to the attack and called again and again. She was' rather a fascinating woman in her manner, and her appearance was good, but she always gave herself away after she had been talking five minutes, At last to get rid of her I gave her a note to take to my solicitor, authorising him to draw an agreement on the payment of £5OO, I eent one on to him by hand, warning him that I did not like the lady’s style, that 1 thought she wanted to get the MSS and score for purposes of her own, and I told him to see the colour of her money, not in a cheque, but in Bank of England notes, before he went to any trouble in the matter. The result was after we had one interview we heard no more of her.” Mr G. B. Sims deserves credit for being one of the few members of ths male sex who did not succumb to Mrs Gordon Baillie’s artful wiles. As ter as we know, Sir Julius Vogel wail the only prominent New Zealander who suecessfuUy resisted het fascinatieus while shewM in yffur eoloßy.