Chicago Tribune, June 21, 1908, Page 5:
📰 PRINCESS BRINGS WILD BEASTS
Garish Suite of Hungarian Invades Washington’s Quiet.
RED AND GREEN LUGGAGE.
Willard Hotel Torn by Advent of Woman Who Needs Twenty Rooms.
Washington, D.C., June 20. — [Special.] —
Princess Vilma Lwoff Parlaghy is in town.
And that’s not all. With her are three maids, by courtesy French; first, second, and third attaché; marshal, courier, butler, chef, and, for good measure, three or four other men servants.
And that’s not all. And with her also are one small yappy, white woolly dog, one pair of guinea pigs badly in need of a hair cut, a couple of young wolves, an ibis, a falcon, several owls, and a family of alligators.
And that’s not all. With her also are several drays of the gaudiest luggage that any hotel ever sheltered. It is all painted red, white, and green—the Hungarian colors.
Closed Rooms Opened for Her.
All these—princess, suite, menagerie, and impediments—are at the Willard. They arrived from Hot Springs, Va., at 3:45 o’clock this afternoon in a private car. They proceeded to the hotel after some delay, in half a dozen carriages, and after considerable excitement on the part of the hotel employees her highness was finally established in a suite which comprises almost the entire southwest wing of the second floor. The princess had ordered rooms with a balcony and was justly indignant when she found, arriving from the Baths to the Willard, where there was no balcony.
In vain did the manager explain that the lower floors were not in use in the summer, that they were closed entirely and dismantled. Madame wanted a balcony and must have a balcony. The closed rooms were forthwith opened and furnished in the shortest possible time and Madame la Princess Parlaghy was installed in a suite of something like twenty rooms with a balcony.
She has what figures as her second sitting room exclusively for her menagerie and is lamenting tonight that she did not bring along a young bear, a dear little tiger kitten, and a furry little lion cub direct to her home at Nice. They were the stars of her collection and it is going to be dull without them for the next month until her highness rails.
Princess Undeniably Sensational.
The princess is the most picturesque lady who has enlivened Washington for many moons. She was here for a few days last February, during which visit she put about the fiction that she was here to paint the portraits of the president and both at the White House and by madam herself. She is a Hungarian girl and immensely barbarian, but that did not look so; like any American girl, she had to get rid of her Russian prince.
The princess is said to be a painter of some note in Europe.
After she got half settled in her apartments she was politely informed it would be necessary to register herself at once. She told them to send the register up, which was done. Her name was written, but the next day the Hungarian flag from the hotel’s flag pole. The management liked this.
This article features a convenient placement
DR. HAYNES FINDS POISON IN GUNNESS VICTIM’S BODY.
Arsenic and Strychnine Produced in Analysis from Stomach of Andrew Helgelein.
Laporte, Ind., June 20. — The first positive information of the manner in which Mrs. Bella Gunness, the archmurderess, who is credited with at least ten victims, disposed of the persons whose bodies were found in her private cemetery was obtained today, when Dr. Walter Haynes of Rush Medical college, Chicago, reported informally to Coroner Mack that he had found traces of arsenic and strychnine in the stomach of Andrew Helgelein of Aberdeen, S.D., whose dismembered body was the first of the ten found after the fire which caused the death of Mrs. Gunness and her three children. A formal report will be made later.
