Show THE QUEEN OF BEGGARS ARS an italian woman who ban sit am orphan asylum to a profit sister founder of the order of maria santissima Santis sima sims della consolata and its present head was recently arrested re S ted in milan for persistent swindling she might truly be called queen of italian beg beggars garr her correct name is maria floresta she was born in turin forty fourbears four years ago and at the age of sixteen was a beautiful woman already wen well known by the men about town she led a wild life in turin until her twenty fifth year and then went to other italian cities in which she continued her questionable career until dissipation had obliterated her beauty she returned unrecognized to turin at the age of thirty seven and in the garb of a sister began the work of fd founding ig the order of maria santissima Santis sima della consolata whose special mission she described as the carlof care of poorer poor orphans although unsupported bythe by the clergy she obtained large sums of money from philanthropists bought an old barracks and filled it with orphans she then turned the institution into a begging enterprise every day hot or cold wet vet or dry she compelled all the orphans to tramp the i streets and beg for money this anoney she deposited to her own credit in the bank reserving hardly a dollar a day for the food and clothes of the orphans the children w were ere starved and beaten so persistently that one in every ten died after a few months in the institution the places of the dead ones were filled at once however by sister and the four accomplices whom she had dressed in sisters garb and impressed into her service at the end of the second year sister Gluseppi na had saved ten thousand dollars from the proceeds of the childrens begging she then left the tha turin institution to the supervision of a subordinate and went to milan where she established a second institution for begging by the beginning of 1891 1801 she had sixty sisters and a number of orphans in her service kad had saved a little fortune estimated at between forty and fifty thousand dollars and was receiving an annual income which in italy was large enough to be called princely she became ambitious to become a millionaire however and aad to this ambition was due the discovery of the fraud she left milan to found still another begging institution she selected intra on the lago maggiore as the s scene cene of her new enterprise and was unable to exercise the requisite discipline in tac turin and milan institutions in both quarrels over the spoils broke out ont and by the time sister had set in operation aeration her begging society in intra har subordinates had betrayed her imposture to the police when she arrived in milan she was wan arrested and taken to jail |