STRANGE MARRIAGE RIDDLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23601, 9 March 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

STRANGE MARRIAGE RIDDLE

What is the National of Beautiful Young Countess?

"¥ AM in the strange position of being married and yet 1 unaware who my husband is. I even do not know what my nationality is. That is now a matter for the authorities to settle." With these remarks a beautiful Austrian countess, who declares that she contracted a "friendship" marriage, referred to her puzzling position as the outcome of an Old Bailey trial which acquitted an Englishman of having bigamously married her.

woman is 5J2-year-old g Countess Edeltrud Claudette -®~ von Cosienza, who was one of the principal witnesses at the London trial which restored Frederick George Wharton, aged 34, of Wembley, to the arms of his wife. The countess alleged that she paid Wharton £25 or £3O for marrying her, her object being to acquire British nationality. Wharton denied the charge that be committed bigamy, and alleged that his name had been forged in a marriage register. " Nothing to Hide " After his acquittal the countess called at Scotland Yard with her papers and marriage certificate, which showed that she went through a ceremony at Marylebone. Home . Office officials and the police are now trying to decide her legal position, and her own advisers hopo to obtain a ruling on her nationality fror.i the Homo Office. If it is decided that she is an Austrian she is liable to internment as an enemy alien, but were she the wife of a British subject she would bo entirely free. "I am finished with marriage now for a long time, perhaps for ever," the red-haired countess told a News of the World representative. "The certificate 1 hold says that in 1937 I married an Englishman described as Frederick George Wharton. "A marrjage undoubtedly took place, and I am told it is still "valid unless the man with whom 1 went through the ceremony comes forward to say he was already married. I would like to know where" he is. 1 am not worried

about stupid stories suggesting that I am a spv. They are simply nonsense. 1 have nothing to hide. "1 am Viennese, and attended a convent school before 1 ran away to Holland to go on the stage. My parents had no svmpathv with my stage ambitions. When they tried to get me to return to Austria I came to England. I soon realised that to settle here 1 would have to marry an Englishman, and that is how all the trouble started. "1 now feel I have been a very silly woman. I had to reveal my innermost secrets in open court, feeling that people were thinking how foolish 1 had been.' 1 Mrs. Wharton, dark-haired wife of the acquitted man. who was present throughout, the trial, expressed her pleasure at her husband's vindication. "My Fred is too kindhearted ever to have deceived anyone," she remarked. "We have been married l!2 years, and one gets to know a man very well in that time. He is the soid of generosity, and is absolutely incapable of such a dirtv trick as, the commission of bigamy. "I think the countess made a genuine mistake, and that someone very like my husband married her. using his name He and I now intend to forget all about this affair, but I feel some sympathy for the countess." Warned by Recorder Giving evidence at the trial, the countess said she met W barton in a cafo at Marble Arch. He left her on the day after the marriage ceremony, and they never lived together. Asked where, she got the money to pay the rent of about €l5O a year at Ivor Court, where she had been living, the countess replied: "T was supported by friends interested in my career." Questioned about particulars given on the marriage certificate, she agreed that her father was described as Josef

Neuwirth, deceased, farmer. Count von Costenza, she said, was her father. She was 19 when she went through the ceremony, but on the certificate her ago was given as 22. When the countess refused to answer questions about particulars she pave to the passport authorities, the Recorder. Sir Gerald Dodson, warned her: "I'nder mv direction you are going to answer them. If you do not the consequences niny be very unpleasant." In evidence. Wharton declared that a statement he made to the police was true. In this ho said lie met a man with a foreign accent in Hyde Park, who tool? him to an address at Padclincton. There lie was offered the post of secretary to a society to he formed to aid foreigners in London. It was explained that lie would need a passport, and he later gave his birth certificate to a man he did not know. The man did not return his birth certificate, and he had not seen hint since. Wharton declared he had never gone through any form of marriage with the countess. Mr. L. A. Bvrne. prosecuting: Do you say someone went through a form of marriage with this woman, supplying particulars which related to von ? Hxactly. And then, signing the notice of marriage and the marriage register, made a verv fair copy of your signature?— Definitely. The jury, after about an hour's retirement. found Wharton not guilty, and lie was discharged.