The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-09-30
SHE IS A WONDER
Baroness Pallandt Most Dan
gerOus Woman in World.
Has Police Record in Nearly
Every Large City.
SUED FOR S1OO, 900 FOR FRAUD
Arrested for Robbery in U. 81,
Fled to Hong Kong.
Maintains Position in Best So.
ciety in Europe.
SUED FOR S1OO, OOOFOR FRAUD

Chicago, Sept. SO.-A detective of
international fame passed thru Chi
caSo this week and his attention was
called to a 100000 suit which has
Just been started here against the Bar
oness May van Pallcndt by Miss
Frank Gray Shaver, woman lawyer of
Highland Park, who alleges the bar
oness obtained this amount from her
thru fraud, deceit and misrepre-
sentation."
The baroness again!" unused the
sIeuth. shes u wonder She has
been in the limelight for years, but
right now, when she doesn't want to
be known. she keeps quiet, tho, mind
you, she's living in sumptuous apart
ment out on Grand boulevard.
This is the character whom Will
lam A Pinkerton calls the most dan
gerous woman l have ever met
believe he's right. Her career reads
imaginlngs of the fiction writers-or
rather the scenario men, in these
days of the movies.
There are police records concern
ing this woman in almost ever, every me.
tropolis in the world. They show
hat the baroness, now living in OBJ
security in Chicago-the same baron
ess that married the master or
hounds for the Princess of Wales
when Victoria was queen of England
lis really Mary, or May Dugas, a
girl who came to Chicago in 1855
from Menominee, Mich.
Inmate of Resorts.
May became an inmate of disor-
derby resorts here and after time
made her way across the continent
to San Francisco where they knew
her as Long Pauline There she was
arrested for administering knockout
drops to a victim in the good old
-strong-arm' days, and fled to Hong
kong.
That really was the beginning of
her career In the east she soon be-
came a woman of fashion. travelling
from capital to capital. always with
some young man of wealthy family in
her train.
"She went thru China with sue
cession of mining men and engineers.
leaving a trail of business failures and
suicides. Once 1 trailed her there with
the son of a New York millionaire,
who wooed her thru Asia and Europe
without success and afterward shot
himself on the Manhattan pier in New
York.
"She picked up about $4,000 dur
ing that tour of the Orient and used
the money to invade Europe. Here
she was given the entree to the most
exclusive society. 1t was in Germany
that she met the Baron de Pallandt.
then master of hounds for the Prin-
cess of Wales, who is now the Queen
Mother Alexandra.
well, the baron became infatuated
and married her. That gave her OPP
portunities to swindle the baron's
friends, which she used to such good
advantage that the baron offered her
$4,000 to get a divorce. She refused
to give up the title, but consented to
a separation.
Schools Her Brother.
Then her brother Jean appeared
and took hand in her operations,
posing frequently as her husband to
help her in the badg4r game and
other Matchmaking OPP atoms. While
she was in the underworld she had
spent part of her earnings giving
Jean an education at the University of
Michigan.
Somehow she kept maintaining her
position in the best of society. In
1901 the papers told of her tact in
helping a daughter-in-law of the late
detectives employed by her husband
and spirit her three children away to
Europe.
Her real past never came to light
until 1914. Then DR.. Ernest V.
Appleby, a former professor of
chemistry at the University of Min
nesota. had her arrested in London.
charging $4,000 fraud as the
climax of his own roma: .ce with her.
London cabled Chicago for infor-
paper dug into the record, found the
rogues' gallery pictures of her in
san Francisco and other cities and
sent the whole story back to London
1000 words of it, Since then she
hasn't appeared to be particularly ac-
tive-but perhaps this Miss Shaver
could tell different story about
that