The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-16
TRIAL OF A NOBLEWOMAN.

STORY OF THE ALLEGED PLOT
 TO PALM OFF AN HEIR.
 ssnsationaI Accusation Against coun-
 tess vesIerski Kwileclst and Her Ae-
 auistai in Berlin-Maic Child Wns
 Needed to Preserve the Family Fora
 tune.
 The most sensational trial which has occupied Berlin court for very many years was concluded on November 20, after having lasted twenty-one days Countess Vesierski Kwilecki was charged before jury with having falsely represented that she had given birth to male child in Berlin on Jan- uary 27, 1897. Her husband, Count Ve- sierski Kwilecki, was accused of having conspired with her to represent a sup posititious child purchased from poor woman in Cracow as their son and heir, with a view to preventing their entaiIed estate of Vroblevo from pass ing out of their branch of the family to another line of Kwilecki.
 In the dock with the count and coun- tess were the midwife, Katharina Ososka Josepha Knoska, an aged fe- male servant: and her daughter, also a servant of the countess. These three women were charged with being access sories to the crime. The count and countess and the two female servants pleaded not guilty, the midwife Ososka pleaded guilty. Ososka was not em- ployed at the alleged accouchement, but testified at a preliminary examina- tion that having nnassaged the countess some months before the date of the supposed birth she had observed all the signs of pregnancy
 The case has attracted an extraordi- nary amount of attention in Berlin, and indeed throughout Germany. The ac- cused count and countess and the kin dred family of the Kwilecki, on whose initiative the public prosecutor took ae- ten, occupy high position among the Polish nobility, and the estate of Vro- blevo, the succession to which was in QQGStlOu, lldC O 1Ctt-tOii Ol oEtCiltJ thousand marks.
 In the year 1896 Countess Vesierski Kwisecki was fifty years of age. She had three daughters, the youngest of whom was born in 1879, and no son. The absence of a direct male heir had involved the count and countess in some serious inconveniences at yroble- vo. They had been living extravagant- ly. and their credit was exhausted. The estate was already heavily mort gagged, and it was difficult to obtain further personal loans, seeing that in all human probability the estate would pass on the counts death to the other line of Kwilecki, while the countess and her daughters would then enjoy only very small jointures.
 The financial position of the count and countess was well known to their neighhors in the province of Posen When, therefore, in May, 1896, it was rumored in the district that the coun- tess was enciente, there was a good deal of scepticism. The case was com plieated by the fact that the countess had all her life manifested the strongest aversion to a medical examination; yet the family physician, Dr. Rosinski, could testify on this occasion, like many other witnesses, to all the outward symptoms of pregnancy.
 The representatives of the rival line of Kwilecli were not so easily satis- fled. They were natusally alarmed by a report that the eccentric countess had declared her intention of going to Italy for her accouehenent, and the head of their line wrote to the count insisting that the expected event should take place within the German empire. The countess determined to accede to this request, and in due course she one day informed her local physician, pr, Ro- sinski, that she was going to Berlin for the accouchement, and that she counted upon him to come when she should send for him.
 The scene is now transferred to Kaiserin Augusta Strasse, in the west end of Berlin. On January 27, 1897, the information was duly handed in at the Berlin district registry that the Coun- tess Vesierski KWilecki had given birth to a son at 5 a. m.s The countess had se- cured the services of a somewhat aged midwife named Dwell, who had been brought from Warsaw. Shortly before the alleged birth the countess had tele- graphed to her family doctor at home, but the telegram must have remained at the local telegraph office over night, for Dr. Rosinski only received it next morning, together with another dispatch stating that the countess had given birth to son.
 Dr. RosinslSi took the first train to Berlin and arrived at the lodgings in the Kaiserin Augusta Strasse shortly after midnight-that is to say, seven teen or eighteen hours after the alleged birth of the child According to the ev- idence which lie gave in court the countess presented every appearance of having been lately delivered, but as usu al she objected to an actual medical ex-