Evening star., 1923-10-17
By THE MARaUIsE DE Fo

BH THE MARC USE DE FONTENO1.
Lord Ventry's succession to his cl
der brothers Irish peerage and bar
onetcy, as we'll as to his very extern
sive estates in Kerry, embracing near
100000 acres, where New Zealand fax
lis now being grown with great sue
cess and profit, serves to recall the
very wide path cut out by'a swindler
who alternately assumed the name of
Lord Ventry and, sometimes, that of
his brother. the Hon. Arthur Eve
leigh de Moleyns. in New York and
other cities of the United States, but
more especially in Chicago, in 1908
and 1909. The man turned out to be
former valet of the late Lord Ven
try, who had been in his service for a
number of years and had not only be-
come intimately acquainted with all
his family affairs, but also succeeded
in acquiring his peculiar mannerisms
and in cultivating a marked resem-
blance to his former employer. Be
fore finally landing in Sing Sing he
ran an extensive career of crime in
Australia and New Zealand, where he
married several wives, deserting each
of them in turn and defrauding nu-
merous people by means of forged
s,
the name OF "Ventry." while others
bore the name of 'de Moleyns." After
he had made the antipodeS too hot TO
hold him, he drifted across the Pa
cific to the United States. where, with
his photographs in the garb of a Brit
ish hussar, his military carriage, his
good looks and his unbounded assur-
ance, he uid well in a number of
western cities, including Goldheld.
New, where he swindled the miners
i IL. Il
money. Then he turned up in Chi
cago, where he made his way into So
ciety and married a woman -,zTith
some money, by whom he had a child
sources he reverted to his former
methods of raising the financial wind
by forging checks, and then de-
camped. deserving the wife and her
baby.
He next appeared in New York.
where he had recourse to his custom
ary practices OF providing himself
with funds, until arrested, duly tried
and convicted on charges of fraud
and forgery. One of the members OF
the de Moleyns family-if my memory
serves me right it was younger
brother of the new Lord Ventry,
namely, John de Moleyns of the Roy
al Munster FuSileers-came to Amer
lea for the purpose of Identifying the
man who had SO shamefully misused
Hand and in America. The eX-valet
was sentenced to long term in Sing
Sing and it was understood that on
it's conclusion he would be re-arrested
on a warrant of extradition for trial
at Chicago for similar charges OF
forgery and bigamy.
!: x x x
The name of. Lord Ventry's family
has only been Eveleigh de Moleyns
since 1S41. Before that time. it was
plain Mullins. the change in the pat
ronymic having been made by the
third Lord Ventry, grandfather OF the
present peer. who secured a royal Ii
cense authorizing him TO effect the
alteration. The first Lord .Ventry
started life as plain Thomas Mullins
of Burnham in County Kerry, re-
ceived a baronetcy in 1897 and an
Irish peerage in 1890, for his services
in bringing about the legislative un-
ion between England and Ireland.
now severed. Until the third Lord
Ventry. the members Of the family
were content to regard certain
Frederick Williams Mullins. member
for Tralee. in the Dublin house of
commons. during the reign of King
William III, as the founder OF their
house. The third lord was, however.
more ambitious and caused genoa
logical tree to be constructed snow
ing his descent from a certain Will
lam de Molines, who, coming over with
William the Conqueror, took part in
the battle of Hastings and received
a grant of land for his bravery on
that occasion. His immediate de-
scendants, according to this genoa
logical tree, of modern growth, were
asserted to have distinguished them
selves in the early crusades. and the
Saracen's head which constitutes a
feature of the armorial bearings of
/ the present Lord Ventry, and of his
| family, is supposed to commemorate the
warIike deeds of the de AfoIines in the
Holy Land. ...e- -''
| Few, if any, of the leading standard
"peerages." even those whose editors
| were the most complainant in fathering
4 the responsibility for genealogical fairy