A Blackmailer Punished.

Hastings Standard, Issue 270, 13 March 1897, Page 4

A Blackmailer Punished.

There is something always refreshing and satisfactory that scoundrels who attempt lo levy blackmail have got their deserts. On this account, the conduct of a foreign Countess residing in Paris is heartily to be commended. A correspondent of the London Standard tells how the lady referred to had, with the object of amusing herself, lately paid a visit to a fortune-teller, through whose instrumentality a young fellow was appointed to victimise her. She received one morning the customary anonymous letter, inviting her to a rendezvous where something of the utmost importance would be revealed. Prompted, perhaps, by that curiosity which is supposed to be common to most of the daughters of Eve, she went to the appointed place at the specified time. The well-dressed gentlemanly young man whom she found awaiting her revealed this :—A certain person who knew compromising facts concerning her was in absolute need of a stated sum of money. If his silence were bought, he undertook to be henceforth, discretion itself. Otherwise, society and the lady's husband would learn more about her than she would care to have known. The lady, mastering her indignation, remarked that she would reflect on the proposal, and would return to the same place on the morrow with her answer. This she did, but accompanied by her husband, who, without waste of words, collared the stylishly-dressed young man, and gave him into custody. The sequel to the adventure has just passod in the presence of Magistrates, who very properly sentenced the fortune-teller and her accomplice to a sutlicieutly long term of imprisonment, to allow them time to reflect upon the errors of their ways.