Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-21
AN ANARCHIST WIFE
Seeks the Hated Law to Compel Her
Husband to Support Her.
HERR MOSTS WIFE Is INVOLVED.
The Accused Charged With Thinking Al
. together Too Much of Her.
SOME RATHER ODD FAMILY RELATIONS

| rsrECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE prsPArCH.i
New YORK, Sept. 20.-An avowed disci-
pie of Anarchy called upon the law and the
police to aid her in forcing her husband to
support her. She is Florentina Koennacke,
stout tull-faced and apparently an edu-
Gated German woman about 43 years old.
She consents to live, however, in the Van
derbilt flats, and her main anxiety seemed
to be that she might be unable to pay the
rent unless Justice Murray brought the abb
horred law to bear on William Koennacke.
Koennacke is a grizzled man of 6S. He
says he is a,particular friend of Herr Johann
Most, but Mrs. Koennacke SAYS he is more
of a friend of Herr Most's reputed wife; has
deserted mis- own wife in consequence, and
is living in Mrs. Most's apartments while
Most is in the penitentiary. Mrs. Koen-
nacke met William Koennacke in Berlin.
Their tastes were similar. She had a strong
desire to lecture, in the hope of making con-
verts to Anarchy, and Koennacke was an
avowed Anarchist, although he says his
opinions are less set than Mrs. Koennacke's
ana he does not favor so strong measures as
she does Mrs. Koennacke says that she
was married to the accused on June 80, 1888,
by the Rev. Wolf Berger, and that her hus-
band abandoned her in February, 1889.
THE MARRIAGE DENIED.
The accused said in the Yorkville Court
that he was not her husband, and that he
could not marry her because she had
abandoned a husband in Berlin, who is like
ly to be alive now. She has three daugh-
tiers married. He says their ideas were so
similar that they came to America to-
gether, but her temper was so violent that
he quit. He took up his residence at 266
William street, where Most lives when he
is at home, and where Mrs. Most lives now,
on the loft floor. She lets furnished room
to him.
Most's paper, the FreiheH, is still pub
lished on William street. The prisoner is
editor in chief of it. In addition he ped
pies Anarchistic periodicals and pamphlets.
His work on the Freiheit is all a labor of
love, in which Mrs. Most has no share, he
said, and he took hold of the paper because
Mrs. Most, although a highly estimable
woman, was hardly'capable of conducting
the paper in her husbands absence The
temper was particularly
violent he said, and she had exercised it so
often and so vigorously on him that he felt
obliged to leave her
NO LOVE FOR MRS. MOST.
The complainant insisted that she was his
wife, and that he was far more interested in
Mrs. Most than he was in her husband or
his paper. This led the accused to call at
tention to the relative ages of himself and
Mrs Most. He is 6S years old and Mrs.
Lena Most is about 2S "Would 1 not be
foolish to fall in love with so young |
woman, and would she not be still more |
foolish to waste any affection on so old |
man?" he asked
''N1rs. Most is an estimable woman and |
this woman is doing all she can to ruin her |
character She even showed photograph |
on which I am pictured seated on a chair
with Mrs. Most standing beside me. She |
must have secured two pictures and Joined |
them together, because we were never pho
.ographed together. Justice Murray put
koennacke under 5000 bonds to pay the
81 week. He was locked up
N default of bonds.
So that makes two editors of FTeiieit in
prison at once. Herr Most was sent to the
Island for year for melting 100 people to
riot.