THE RECORD BROKEN.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 7427, 1 June 1891, Page 2

THE RECORD BROKEN.

A Wornon with Forty-threß

Husbands-

S abis, March 28.

A woman who baa actually gone through the marriage service with forty-three men and swindled all but ono of them within three hours after the ceremony is the latest catch of the Parisian police. The woman is a daughter of a Shropshire farmer and worked all her schemes in France. Six years ago Eveline Leal was a handsome young English girl, who married a Frenchman who died within a month after the wedding, leaving her with no money, but plenty of debts. To square herself with society Ev«line resorted to what is known in police lingo as the "marriage trick."

Her method of procedure was simple and ingenious. She advertised stating that eho was a widow possessing a fortune of 1,200,000 francs, who wished to marry a gentleman in good circumstances belonging to the nobility or to a higk commercial class. The answers were to be sent to the post office.

Her accomplice, who occupied the position of a companion, seems to have had the important duty of choosing the victims from among the applicants. At any rate a suitor was never admitted into Eveline's presence unless his personal appearance was in his favour. Then he was granted a rendezvous either in her sumptuous apartments in the Champs Elyseca or at one of the he st hotels.

Naturally Evolino took a different name on every occasion, for to some of the suitors to her hand and fortune she called herself Mine. Terbank, Mmo, Happy, Mme. Deeomay, or Mme. Bumelly. She always began by making some objection to an immediate marriage Sometimes assuming the oharacter of an ingenious miss, she said her mother considered she was too young for marriage and that the applicant must wait,

On other occasions tho fortune or social position of her suitor was not what she desired, but in the end she always allowed herself to be captivated with the personal qualitios of the would-be husbands. She often managed things so cleverly that she received rich presents from some of her suitors. Aftor getting as much as she could she would suddenly disappear. In several cases she considered it better policy to secure possession of the wedding gifts by agreeing to the marriage ceremony. For this she invariably crossed the Channel, expressing a preference that the wedding should take place in England. After the elorgyman had in all good faith pronounced tho nuptial benediction she returned with her victim to the hotel, and always managed to disappear before night, but never leaving her wedding gifts behind. Eveline had victimised thirty-two presumably intelligent men in this way before she fell in the hands of the Paris police in the autumn of 1887, when she was sent to gaol for two years, fhe obtained an early release by good oonduct,and at once resorted to her old tricks again. She victimised ten lovers more without detection. Most of the men she swindled were too abashed to inform the police, but her fortythird victim gave the police information whioli led to Eveline's second arrest on Good Friday at the Hotel Meurico, Rue de Kivoli. Her dupe this iima was a French viscount, who had ruined himself through gambling, and who was anxious to regild his armorial bearings with the 1,200,000 francs of the charming widow.