HEIRESS AND WAITER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2752, 5 March 1910, Page 4 (Supplement)

HEIRESS AND WAITER.

PURSUED FOR TWELVE DAYS

After a hot pursuit lasting twelve days, in which the hue and cry was raised throughout the country, they have unearthed at Chicago tlie hidingplace of little Roberta Janon, the Pliil_ adclphia. heiress, aged 17, who fled from the luxurious, suite at a fashionable Philadelphia hotel, which she occupied with her grandfather, who is a millionaire, and in lier company at Chicago, in miserable lodgings, they also discovered Frederick Cohen, aged 46, a waiter at the aforesaid hotel. “I went away with Cohen,” she said, “because ever since my mother died five years ago I had no one to love me or care about me, and I was very lonely.” She insists that Cohen behaved like a perfect gentleman, and that the relationship between lier and the absconding waiter is only that of father and daughter. Mi's. Cohen, the waiter’s wife, however, persists in saying that Roberta is a perfect little vixen, and that .she inveigled the man into eloping, and sli© has now brought an action to recover £IO.OOO damages lor alienation of affection, naming Air. Robert Bnist, Roberta’s grandfather, who is reputed to be worth £600,000, as defendant, Mr. Buist- being, the legal guardian of liis granddaughter. Roberta told the polico and the reporters that if she had not been so lonely in that big Pliilidelphia hotel she would never have fled, because she had plenty of money, and all tlie luxuries money could buy, except friendship, and Colien, slio said, had been her compan. ion, sympathising with her, and trying his best to make her lonely life- agreeable. Although Roberta spent £BO in buying clothes just, before, she ran away, she was penniless when found, and even lier jewels had been pawned by Cohen to pay the expenses. .In their endeavor to avoid arrest the couple travelled 3000 miles, crossing tho border into Canada, as far as Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then making a quick flight west to Chicago. At Halifax the couple took ship for England, but as the captain refused to allow “Tookie,” Roberta’s pet terrier,, to accompany her, they disembarked. Both the girl and the waiter were locked up in gaol, and the girl seemed the least affected. Cohen cheerfully placed all tlie blame on Roberta, but insisted that the extent of his guilt consisted in accompanying the heiress at her request, and posing all the time as lier father. Roberta herself swears that she begged Cohen to run away with lier, and threatened to commit suicide if he did not. Letters in proof of that statement are produced. However, by the time Chicago was reached they were both thoroughly tired of their escapade, and Roberta soys she is quite willing to return to her grandfather, providing he forgives the waiter, refuses to prosecute him, and induces Airs. Cohen to pardon her husband. According to the Chicago reporters. Cohen passed as a count in disguise, who had been driven to accept a- job as a waiter by the stress of hard luck.

Roberta is a good-looking, slim girl, full or romantic notions. She always addressed Coilien a s “count,” and said he once owned a string of racehorses.

Simultaneously with*the discovery of Roberta comes the anouneoment, which has greatly shocked tlie fashionable society of New- York, that another heiress has eloped with her father’s chauffeur. The lady is 27 years of age. and the chauffeur is a smart, handsome fellow, just 21. Ho was once a clerk, and he says he became a chauffeur because it provided £2O a month wages, and, incidentally, afforded him the “entree to the most exclusive circles.” The bride’s father bought an automobile last season, and says it has boon chiefly used for the benefit of his daughter’s courtship on country roads. Now he has abandoned motor-cars in favor of horses.