A CRAZY COUNTESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8162, 25 January 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

A CRAZY COUNTESS.

THE STRANGE STORY OF HER CAREER.

Count Ladislaus Von Vaya, chamberlain of the Austrian Emperor, and ono of the most distinguished men in the empire, is about to take steps for placing in an insane asylum his beautiful and distinguished daughter, the Countess Sarolta. She is a girl of 27 years. She has recently been deprived of the right of contracting any legal debts, and her fortune has been placod in the hands of trustees. Her history is a. strange one. It appears that during the first eight years of Count Vaya's marriage no children were born to him, a fact which almost drove him to (.loupe ration when he remembered that in default of issue his immense estates would pass to the Crown and his naiuo become extinct. When at length the Countess gave birth to a child, he had so thoroughly accustomed himself to looking for a boy that no one ventured to undoceive him and tell him that the infant was a girl. The priest who baptised the child was won over to the more or less pardonable deceit practicod on the Count by his wife and her attendants, and, although the name given by the .sponsors was that of Sandor (a boy's name), the name entered on the parish register was that of Sarolta or Charlotte. Dressed and educated like a boy, the little Countess bore tho name ot Sandor till her eleventh year, and was believed by all to belong to the male sex. She was taught to shoot and fish, and from the age of six rode astride of her pony, dressed in hussar uniform, like a little centaur. Just about the time when the Count was beginning to consider the advisability of sending his daughter, or, as he thought, his son, to the Nobles' Academy at l'esth, his wife gave birth to a real boy. The necessity for keeping up the fraud with regard to the sex of Sandor, or Sarolta, had now disappeared, and steps were taken to make everybody acquainted with the true facts of the _ ' The only person who seriously objectod to tho altered condition of things was the young Countess herself, and instead of this feeling passing away as she grew older it grew stronger every year. She implored her father, of course without success, to permit her to enlist as a man in the hussar regiment of which ho was Colonel-in-Chief. As soon, however, as she had reached tho age of '21, sito took the bridle between her teeth, metaphorically speaking, and, arrayed in men's clothes, entered upon a career of wild extravgaance and dissipation. Everywhere she gave her name as Count Sandor de Vay, audoven fought a couple of duels with men who had insulted her by insinuations regarding her sex. A number of articles signod " Sandor Vay appeared in one of the lead'ng Pesth newspapers, mostly on sporting matters, on which she is an authority ; an J, for the purpose of keeping up the illusion of her manhood, she even went so far as to spend an immense amount of money on cue of the most charming divas of the Hungarian stride, purchasing a hou j e for her and horses and carriages, besides loading her with jewellery. Her latest eccentricity consists in having eloped and gone through the marriage ceremony with tho daughter of an army contractor at Lay bach, in Austria, for the sole object of obtaining the young girl's large dowry, for Sandor, or Sarolta, has been in great straits for money since she was placed under control and thereby deprived of the use of her fortune.