“ WITH A VIEW TO MATRIMONY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3345, 11 October 1911, Page 7

“ WITH A VIEW TO MATRIMONY.

M \N POSES AS WIDOWER TO DECEIVE WOULD-BE BRIDES.

How a domestic servant who had been cruelly robbed by an adventurer brought about his arrest was an incident of a recent week-end in Paris. A middle-aged, woman, she left the service of a Parisian doctor after by great care and thrift amassing the handsome sum of £SOO. and: iooked about for a home of her own. No suitor presented himself, so she had recourse to the matrimonial columns. There she found an advertisement to the following effect:— Widower, desirous of remarrying, possessor of 40,000 francs, seeks wife with 10,000 to 15.000 francs, with a view to purchasing good going business.

•'•Just the tiling,” she exclaimed, joyously, and she immediately communicated with the advertiser. The widower, who gave the name of Frederick Lacour, and said he was in business in London, gave her an appointment in Strasburg. She met him there and found him so charming and captivating that she immediately promised him her hand in marriage, and on account let him take charge of her £SOO. His blandishments and his anxiety lest she be robbed by some unscrupulous person quite overcame her native caution. Next day her promised husband and her little fortune, her life’s savings, were gone. She at once informed! the Paris police, and they sot a trap for the swindler. They inserted an advertisementin a morning newspaper to the effect that a good-looking widow with a small fortune was anxious to meet a middleaged widower, with a view to matrimony. The bait took.

Lacour changed his name but not hi-* handwriting, and an appointment was made at Versailles between him anJ his new prey, who happened to be the woman who had just been robbed.

At the rendezvous Lacour was arersteil, together with a man and a. woman. Lacour proved to be a wellknown criminal alias Joseph Schumann, alias Gutmann. He is a Russian, and has been five times sentenced, and is under a decree of expulsion. His female accomplice, Madeleine Turdier, was also arrested. As nothing was known about the other man he was left provisionally at liberty .