In Manhattan

There are only four widows of Presidents now living. Last week one of them appeared in a Manhattan police court. Of the four, one is Mrs. Wilson, another is Mrs. Roosevelt, another Mrs. Preston (formerly Mrs. Cleveland) and the fourth is Mary Scott Lord Dimmick Harrison.

It was Mrs. Harrison, now 67, who went into court. She is unique among the widows of Presidents, for although she lived two years in the White House she was never First Lady of the Land. When Benjamin Harrison took office as President in 1889 his first wife (Caroline Lavinia Scott) was alive. She died in the White House in 1892, leaving a son and a daughter.

During the first Mrs. Harrison's lifetime, her niece, Mrs. Dimmick (Mary Scott Lord), the widow of a lawyer who had died at sea of typhoid on their honeymoon some ten years before, stayed at the White House with her aunt and the President for some two years.

In 1896, after President Harrison's retirement, he married Mrs. Dimmick in Manhattan. He was then 62, she about 38. The following year a daughter, Elizabeth was born to them. In 1901 Mr. Harrison died. Mrs. Harrison and the President's children by his first marriage then entered into litigation over the Harrison estate of some $375,000.

Last week Mrs. Harrison appeared in court again. She told how for some time she had been missing various articles: pins, rings, linen, gold chains, diamond chains, bracelets, antique combs. When her maid Anna Bernhardt, aged 23, last week gave notice, Mrs. Harrison became suspicious. She called in the police. Detectives Gallagher and Murtha strolled over from the East 104th Police Station (her apartment is at 1160 Fifth Ave., the corner of 97th St.). They searched the maid's room and found the missing articles. In court Miss Bernhardt wept on her mistress' shoulder, asked for a chance to prove that she was innocent. Mrs. Harrison relented and asked Magistrate McKiniry not to send the girl to jail. He said he was sorry but had no choice. He held her for want of $2,500 bail for action by a grand jury.