The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-12-27
PRINCESS RADzIWILL WILL
PRESS HER BIG LAWSUIT
Graphic Account of How She Got
Her Letters and Papers Out
of South Africa.
PASSED THE CUSTOMS

LONDON, Dec. 26.-The Princess Cath
crime Radziwill since her arrival in Eng
land has been busy arranging her letters,
papers and other documents for the trial
of the suit which she brought against the
estate of the late Cecil Rhodes. Her claim
is a large one and she proposes to prove it
by letters and papers in her possession,
which she claims are in the handwriting
of the late diamond magnate of South
Africa. She gives a graphic description
as TO how she got these papers out of
South Africa and in safety to Europe,
watched as she was by horde of private
detectives and agents of Rhodes, who did
not hesitate to examine her correspond
ence. 1t seems that she made use of a
friend. Mrs. Hill, living in small village
named Headington, near Oxford First
she wrote to that lady congratulating her
on an imaginary birthday, and asking her
to accept some ostrich eggs as a souvenir,
and to be careful about opening the brit
tie parcel. Next she bought three fine
ostrich eggs at a shop at Cape Town, re-
questing it's proprietor to pack them up
carefully and to send them to her. Then
she went to another shop and purchased
some cardboard similar to that in which
the eggs were Enclosed. On her return home
she emptied the box, laid at the bottom the
documents which she wished to get away,
covered them over with another layer OF
cardboard, so arranged as to appear to
be the real bottom of the box, and then
put in the eggs and sawdust and tied the
parcel up exactly as it had been before.
Two days afterwards she sent the packet
back to the shopkeeper with the request
that he should forward it, as she was I'M
acquainted with the formalities. The trick
was not discovered by the officer when he
inspected it at the customs house in Eng
land and three weeks after it's departure
from Cape Town it reached its destina-
ton. Princess Radziwill says that no one
believed her when, during her trial, she
declared that she had sent the papers to
Europe
Extravagant as is the tale told by the
princess of her relations with Rhodes, and
of how his friendship turned to hate and
TO persecution, yet it must be acknowl-
edged that her statements are borne out
by clrcumstantial evidence and that unless
her case had been strong one the eminent
lawyers whom she has secured to represent
her interests would never have taken il
up. Moreover, it is admitted by Rhodes's
friends that the trouble with the princess
FASTENED his death.
That she had an altogether fair trial
in South Africa one is inclined to doubt.
1t was a question between her veracity
and that of Rhodes, and aside from his
overwhelming influence over everything
in South Africa, ana the prejudice enter
tanned against her as a Russian intrigante,
IL seems perfectly true that she was pre-
vented from calling the witnesses that she
needed and that she was afraid to bring
back from Europe to South Africa the
papers that would have cleared her.
The princess asserts that her present
proceedings against the Rhodes estate
are not so much for the sake of money
as in order to have an opportunity of
proving in court in England her innocence
of the charge of forging Rhodes's name,
of which she was convicted at the Cape.
She belongs by birth to one of the oldest
houses of Russian Poland, is the widow OF
Prince hadziwill, the mother of Princess
Butcher, has been on terms of intimacy
with the late Lord and Lady Salisbury
and other prominent people in England and
on the continent, is brilliant eccentric, ex-
traVagant, and was led into indiscretions
by her ambition to remain the Egeria of
the Colossus of South Africa.