NOT HER HUSBAND

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11423, 20 January 1923, Page 13

NOT HER HUSBAND

SWINDLER VANISHES IN TIME. The credulity of country folk has again been proved by a swindler who fooled the village of Statzdorf, near Krems (Austria). He pretended that he was a supposed dead soldier, Ignatz Gausterer, and had returned from a long imprisonment in Russia through Japan. Though the man was shorter and in many ways different front Gausterer, he convinced rthe villagers that the changes were due to his long sufferings in Russia, and when the widow Gausterer pressed for personal details the man feigned loss of memory, due to wounds. The pseudo-Gausterer had lived for severaL months on the estate of a rich peasant as the husband of the widow when his glory ended by the discoi'ery by the police that the man had committed a series of similar tricks in different parts of Austria, always emerging as a “dead” husband with failing memory, and after a 1 few weeks’ stay with the widow disappearing ivitli her jewels. He escaped arrest by disappearing in time.