Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-05-26

= 5 3 IN j. q.
year IS turned 40 a washington.
From washington be went to Montreal.
thence to London and other Europe IN
cities. and from each place he visited
came tales OF financial operations in
which the count was always the one
who profted.
In 1874 he returned to this country.
On the steamer he met Miss Caroline
Lester, the daughter of rich banker Of
Rochester, N. X, whom he afterward
married, despite the strenuous objec-
lions of her parents. His enemies
claim that Mitkiewicz abused his wife
and that she died of a broken heart, but
this is denied by those who knew him
best. His first wife died about 1884,
leaving two daughters. who were taken
by the Lester family. A year or two
city to Mrs. Yates, a widow, and the
great-grand- daughter of Chief Justice
Marshall. She lived but few years.
and after her death he married Miss
Mary Ethel Small, who survives him.
Miss Lester was possessed of for
tune when Mitkiewicz married her, and
for time it appears he lived quietly
that is, quietly for Mitkiewicz. He was
not again heard of until 1879, when he
launched a great coal scheme in Balti-
more, with ramifications in Washing
ton. A company was formed, the CAPT
tai being furnished by Baltimore men
and it was proposed to do business on
a gigantic scale. Mitkiewicz spent the
profits faster than they accrued, and
failure was the result.
The outcome of the counts next ven
ture brought him worldwide fame By
this time he had become spiritualist
and through a common interest in thai
science, it is claimed, he secured some
sort Of a partnership in the telephone
patent owned by William G. Turnbull
of Baltimore.
The Bell patents prohibited the extern
sion of independent telephone interests
in this and other civilized countries. SC
Mitkiewicz turned his attention to
China, where no patent laws existed to
interfere. Wharton Barker, last year
the Populst candidate for President,
was at that time Philadelphia capital
list. Mitkiewicz interested him in the
project The Chinese minister to Wash
ington was Chang Yen Hoon. whose
friendship the count gained. The min
lister furnished letters of introduction
and Endorsement, and Barker furnished
the money for preliminary expenses.
Thus armed. Mitkiewicz set out for
China Five weeks in the Celestial en-
pire were sufficient for him to accumu-
late more than anyone had before or
have since been able to accomplish. Not
only did he secure absolute telephone
rights in the Chinese quarters of nine
teen treaty ports, but he secured tenta-
tive concessions for the establishment
of banking houses in any or all of the
Chinese cities, as we'll as concessions by
which he was to have first option on
the building of all railroads and the de-
velopment of all mines and other inter-
nal improvements. In short, it was a
second East India Company that was
to be established, in all but the govern
ing power.
The only condition attached to the
concessions was that they should have
tie approval OF the Chinese minister in
Washington. Feeling secure in the
friendship of the minister and confident
that his approval would be secured the
count set out for home. At Shanghai
however, he committed an indiscretion
that was his undoing Up to this time
lis business in China had been kent a
secret from the outside world: but con-
fident of success at Shanghai, under the
influence, it is said, of champagne he
boosted of what he had accomplished
and Immediately all the world that be-
lieved its interests endangered was I'm
in arms against him.
Mitkiewicz failed to secure the sigma.
ture OF the Chinese minister in Wash
ington. The causes that led to his fial-
use have been the subject of MANY
stories. Heretofore the generally ac-
cepted version has been that persons
whose interests would have been placed
in Jeopardy opened the eyes of the Chi
nese government. and the minister ii,
Washington was instructed to withhold
his approval A Washington man who
was Interested in the deal, when seen
last night by Post reporter, however
told a different story.
According to his version, when Nit
kiewicz returned to the United States
he was accompanied by two high Chi
nese officials. who, with the Chinese
minister, were to sit as board of final