MAHARAJA'S JEWELS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19550, 1 February 1927, Page 11

MAHARAJA'S JEWELS.

£70,000 WORTH STOLEN. STRANGE RECOVERY BY CHANCE. A. and N.Z. DELHI, Jan. 30. An alleged fraud which was perpetrated on the Maharaja of Bharatpur, who is one of the leading ruling chiefs of India, has had a dramatic sequel. The Maharaja was recently anxious to raise a large sum of money and so he negotiated with an Anglo-Indian agent in Calcutta for the disposal of his State jewels, which were valued at £70,000. The agent in whose custody the jewels were placed gave the Maharaja's agent two cheques for the value of the jewels. .-. ' The cheques were later dishonoured, and the agent was arrested. The bag was found, but it contained no jewels. A report of the disappearance of the jfewels appeared in a newspaper and was read by a youth who was a friend of the man who had been arrested. The youth recalled that his friend had left a bag with him for safe keeping, and had said that it contained some papers. The youth took the bag to the police, who found the jewels intact in it. Bharatpur is one, of the smaller Rajput States in North-west India, with a population of some 500,000 people. The city of Bharatpur was taken in 1827 by the British forces under Lord Combermere. The present Maharaja, Lieut.-Colonel Sir Vrijendra Bahadur Jang of Bharatpur, was born in 1899. He was educated at Wellington College. He attended the funeral of King Edward in 1910, and was one of the Royal pages at the great Coronation Durbar at Delhi, in 1911. He married the sister of the Maharaja of Faridhot. When Lord Reading, the exViceroy, left India from Bombay in April last year with Lady Reading, a. typically Oriental incident occurred. The thousands of spectators saw a splendid motor-car approach, with curtained windows. The car contained the Maharani of Bharatpur, who remained there in "purdah," and was visited by Lady Reading, on whom the Maharani placed a golden garland, and gave her another for Lord Reading.