"MERELY A WAITER."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14405, 25 June 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

"MERELY A WAITER."

CAREER OF RASCALITY. KNOWN ALL OVER EUROPE. > A dark, handsome, well-dressed .man, with a long curly moustache, was placed in the dock at Hull Police Court, when the stipendiary magistrate held a special sitting. He was Eduard von Westcrnhagen, the German waiter who is charged with obtaining £40. by false pretences from Joseph Schann, a teacher and a native of Mulhausen, in Germany. Mr. William C. Dawson prosecuted for the Crown, nd Mr. G. S. Williamson defended. In opening, Mr. Dawson said the prisoner, who was arrested on March 4, advertised in the Parisien Zeitung for an assistaint master with a thorough knowledge of French, who could invest £125. Ho told Schann, who answered the advertisement, that he was a German baron, and had been an officer in the German Army. ■ i He also claimed to be a professor at an English university. • When the prisoner had obtained the money he kept Schann practically a prisoner in the school, and half-starved him. Schann. whose letters to his parents Mere kept back, was rescued by the German pastor at Hull. 1 * The "baron" had no diplomas, and had never been a professor in a university. He was merely a waiter in a German restaurant. Westernhagen, said counsel, had carried on such a career'of rascality and fraud that lie was known all over Europe. Prisoner, added the counsej, had practised as a Doctor of Laws at. Shepherd's Bush, and at Clapham he had run a patent medicine. company. He 'was also a proprietor of an employment registry which, in reality, was connected with the White Slave traffic. He had established a Duliu Correspondence Lodge, at Murray Road. Ealing, and also carried it on at May Villa, Windmill Road, Brentford, and at the Grove, Ham- 1 j mersmith. . _ - At the latter address he carried on busi-1 ness under the name of Or. Meyer. ; j He advertised in Continental newspapers that a . German . baron; possessed rof large estates was desirous of contracting matrimony, ; and: used various aristocratic titles, such as: ? • •••-•.;. ' : Baron Von Sachs. - Baron Von Guilden, or Baron • Von. Reitzenstein. , In , some cases Westernhagen went through a form , of- marriage with the women, obtained their I money, ; and disappeared. ■, " \

He ; had also inserted advertisements in. the Continental newspapers offering, as a German baron with large estates/ to adopt children for large sums of money. • . 5 Evidence was given \that- prisoner Westernhagen had gone through a form of marriage with three women in London and Rotterdam. Prisoner was. remanded in bail of £2000, which, however, was not found.