MONEY AND BRAINS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2438, 1 March 1909, Page 5

MONEY AND BRAINS.

If we remember rightly it was the L’ichborne claimant who said that there were people with money and no brains, and people with brains and no money, and that it was the business of the latter to pray on the former. The ease with which some people of no means can command the money of people with means—some of them prominent in the- world of business — makes one rub one’s eyes in astonishment. Miss Violet Charlesworth, whose strange feat of knocking down a granite wall with a- motor car without injuring, the car we described the other 'day, is a case in point. Born of humble parents, and without means or education, she had such a way with uer, that she passed for a young lady of distinction, lived in expensive hotels, drove in big motor-cars, wore costly jewellery, and speculated largely on the Stock Exciiange. In tne tong account of her career, published by the “Daily Express,” there is no record of her ever earning or inheriting any money ._ Her loo’ks and her brains were apparently her stock-in-trade, and they served her well. The way in which sne got on the soft side of Mrs Smith, of Derby, is a remarkable instance of the power of unlimited assurance. Mrs Smith had known her 1 rom childhood, but when Miss Violet returned, a dazzling young woman in a large motor-car, the poor woman’s judgment was paralysed. Miss Violet’s tale of a fortune of £75,000, which she- would inherit at 25, and visits to her jflace in Wales—purchased and maintained in some mysterious manner—completed the victory, and Mrs Smith withdrew all her savings, amounting to £SOO and handed them over to her friend. Miss Charlesworth. turned London business people round her little finger just as easily. One firm supplied her with jewellery to the value of £2OOO, motor dealers let her have goods on credit, and stockbrokers kindly advanced her the means to lose £IO,OOO in speculation. . She. played off these creditors against each’ other in most ingenious style. Would her brokers advance her something? There was such excellent- security—fine estates, jewels, and motor-cars. Then when the brokers suggested that they should keep a- diamond tiara as security, she* smiled and said, “What ever use is it,to you? You don’t want it- I will keep it myself.” So she kept both the money -and the jewellery. ■ .