LONDON GOSSIP.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 276, 27 November 1897, Page 3 (Supplement)

LONDON GOSSIP.

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, October S LABBY-BAITING.

The fact that there are many moneyed magnates in the city who would not stick at a trifle if they could pull the redoubtable 'Labby's' character and reputation about his ears has somewhat detracted from Mr Henry Hess's sensational accusations and disclosures in the African 'Critic' during the last few weeks. Mr Hess piled the agony too high altogether. The Labby of twenty years ago may not have been a pattern of all the financial virtues, but that he ever played the stockbroking game illegitimately I don't for a moment believe. Moreover, Mr Hess's conclusions are obviously founded on absurdly false premises. The Labby of the early seventies was an unknown quantity. Save as the 'Besieged Resident in Paris' of the 'Daily News' nobody cared a button about him. Even if he had possessed the will to write stocks up or down in the 'World' for jobbing purposes, he hadn't the power. Edmund Yates's budding venture of those days wasn't like the 'Times' or 'Truth' today. This is a fact Mr Hess appears to totally overlook. If, however, you are interested in 'Labby-baiting-,' get the African 'Critic' of October 2nd and 'Truth' of October 7th. You will find in the former Hess's charges and in the latter Labby's answer. MARQUIS AND SCHOOLMASTER. The late Marquis of Normanby was always accounted extremely frugal, not to use a stronger word, and many are the stories of his strenuous endeavours to keep down the expenses of his colonial governorships. _ Lady Normanby wore black bombazine and called herself a sterling. Evangelical. She flung texts at you in the most embarrassing manner, and cared not when or how she floored an unfortunate guest. The story goes that during the Normanby regime in New Zealand inexpensive tea and prayer meetings were held at Government House.^ Sir George Grey used to tell how lie inadvertently dropped in at one of these pious functions and was greeted by his hostess with the words, 'How are you, dear Sir George? and (in a hollow voice) how is your soul?' Sir George was so taken aback he could only ejaculate, 'Quite well, thank you, ma'am; how's yours?' which was not quite the answer her ladyship expected. I don't think the Normanbys were, really stingy ; but they were—for their position—cruelly poor, and had to save every penny possible out of their official incomes. The great fear of the Phipps family has been that the ancestral home of Mulgrave Castle would have to be sold. The present peer (an evangelical clergyman) has taken the bull by the horns and started a boys' school there with himself as head-master. It is a bold thing to do, and a sensible one. A grander site for a school could not be imagined. The situation of Mulgrave Castle is extremely fine, commanding a magnificent prospect over the North Sea, viewed 500 feet above its level, with a rock-bound coast line and a distant o-limpse of the old Abbey of Whitby. One small piece of the lawn, near the house, is called the 'Quarter-deck,' the views from which are so varied and delightful that Charles Dickens is said to have 'literally danced with ecstacy' at the sight of so perfect a scene. Southwards are the famous Mulgrave Woods, over 1,000 acres in extent, which are intersected by several becks. A SHOCKING SCANDAL. There is nothing bizarre nowadays in womenfolk wearing breeches. 'Tis rather smart than not. Sometimes they call them 'bloomers' and sometimes 'knickers', but in al essentials they are unmitigated breeches. When, however, a man conceals his imperfections in petticoats 'tis quite astonishing how unkind everyone, including the police, become. At Southport just now the Nonconformist conscience has been terribly scandalised by a peculiar case of female impersonation. It seems that some time ago a family named, we'll say, Williams—that was not, of course, their real name—moved to Southport from an adjacent Lancashire township. They numbered three persons —a mother, a grown-up daughter, and one servant—and brought letters of introduction to the pastor of a chapel. The rev. gentleman received them kindly, and in due course Mrs and Miss Williams became devout members of his con-

gregations and earnest workers in the fold. Miss Williams was very popular. A tall, strapping damsel, a trifle flat-chested, perhaps, but blessed with a mellow contralto voice and exceedingly handsome. Her chiefest charm, however, as all the chapel ladies felt, lay in her large and loving heart. She possessed a taking, twining, clinging way with, her that was altogether irresistible; in fact, her long1 arms appeared for ever around one or two of the prettiest girl's waists. Miss Williams' manner to 'dear ma' sometimes struck visitors as a trifle brusque, but she was niceness itself to her maid Eliza, even sharing a bedroom with her. About a year ago the maid died, and Miss Williams seemed terribly upset. Sympathy was showered on her, and one of the deacon's wives consoled the poor girl with her company the night • before the funeral. She subsequently remarked that 'darling Clara was positively growing quite a moustache,' and the girls looked thereat and giggled. 'Oh my! so she is.' Shortly after this Mrs Williams went away for a visit, and Miss W. asked her dearest friend, who was also the daughter of a Avealthy brewer, to keep her company. Mrs Williams, howevei*, returned home unexpectedly, and the neighbours heard her scolding her daughter and guest in shrill,.hysterical tones. Next day Mrs Wiliiams, Miss Williams, and the dearest friend all three mysteriously disappeared. The pastor and other devoted brethren grew anxioxis. A search was instituted, and the trio were eventually run to earth. Miss Williams was now in breeches, and had evoluted into a slight, rather effeminate youth of 22. He had the previous day married the brewer's daughter, and, instead of being ashamed of his discreditable masquerade, treated the affair as a huge joke. The fun is not, however, apparent to the pastor of the Southport chapel nor to the husbands and brothers of the female members of the flock in which the late Miss Williams took such a tender interest. They have threatened to break every bone in the youth's body if he comes near Southport again. A RECORD DECEPTION. From the West Ham Workhouse comes another strange story of a man who was a woman, which ranks with the best of the multitude of tales concerning people who have thought fit to ape the sex to which they were n«t born. Catherine Coombes —or Charles Wilson, as she has been called for many years—went to the West Ham Union last Saturday night. She was dressed in man's clothing, neat, clean and respectable, and to all outward appearances looked like a clerk or superior artisan down on his luck. The officials naturally sent her to the men's ward together with two other applicants for free lodgings. The inflexible rule at all our workhouses is that before entering into the joys of the casual ward all would-be lodgers shall pass a probationary period in. the bath. 'Charles Wilson' and his companions were, of course, required to wash, and all these at once began to strip. Suddenly, however, Wilson stopped the process of disrobing, and stepping up to the attendant requested to see the matron and the doctor. Instead, the master was sent for, and to him the little out-of-worlc painter intimated his desire to make i a statement privately. The master took Wilson on one side and the latter then made the simple, but withal startling remark, 'I am a woman.' The master thought for the moment that he had a lunatic to deal with, but the painter went on quietly to state that her proper name was Catherine Coombes, her age 62, and that she had worn men's clothes for 42 years without finding it necessary to reveal her sex. The master at this point sought counsel with the matron, who then interviewed Wilson. Her report was conclusive, and inside ten minutes the masquerader garbed in a print gown was eating her supper in the women's ward. Her life story was duly unfolded to the authorities, and a Very strange tale it makes. Catherine Coombes was born at Axbridge in Somerset, in 1834, and was educated at the Cheltenham Ladies' College. She left school at the age of sixteen, and soon after married her first cousin, a man three-and-twenty years her senior, and a very 'bad egg' to boot. His wife obtained a good appointment as mistress of the Cleave National School, but Coombes' conduct towards the pupils brought about her dismissal. The husband then ran away to London, and thither, on the strength of a letter announcing that he had obtained a situation at Chel-

sea, his wife followed him. When she arrived the brute took.away all her clothes, save those she was wearing-, and pawned them. Her husband speedily lost his berth through his irregular habits, and being absolutely penniless the twain set out for Cheltenham, walking every step of the way. Here Coombes' wife's mother lived, and it soon became evident that lie proposed to live upon the mother , and daughter. But his wife spoiled his little game by running away to her brother, a painter and decorator, in business at West Bromwich. By helping him Mrs Coombes learned the trade which she lived by in after years. After a time her husband found her again and by promises of amendment persuaded her to live with him once more. She opened a school \ at Hazenville, but before this venture was fairly on its legs Coombes broke out again. Heart-sick and weary with the life she led with him Mrs Coombes once again 'cut stick' and ran to her brother at West Bromwich, but soon after, at a funeral oi a relative, husband and wife met ag-ain. Coombes announced his intention of never leaving his wife, but she on her part had decided to have ]no more to do with him. So she travelled toßirmingham,took lodgings for her brother at a coffee house, bought a suit of boy's clothes, and effecting the change became 'Charles Wilson.' The coffee house proprietor never suspected the trick that had been played upon him. 'Wilson ' finding work scarce in Birmingham came Ito London, where she has worked ever since. She was admitted as a member of the Painters' Union, and for thirteen years worked for the P. and 0. Company, and gained the reputation of being an excellent tradesman. For seven years she lived at Camden ; Terrace, Custom House, with her niece as housekeeper. To the neighbours they were man and wife. Two years ago the 'wife' left her suddenly, possibly to enter service with a real husband. During the forty-two years of her deception Mrs Coombes has been attended by many doctors, but, apparently, none of them ever harboured suspicions as to her sex. WANTED AN AMATORY ASYLUM. Is love a mere malady, 'the tender passion' of which the poets of all ages have sung but a pathological condition? Are the flushed cheek, the downcast eye, the tremulous quiver of the maiden's lips, and the accelerated beating of her heart merely symptoms to be weighed, diagnosed and prescribed for by grave medicine men? So it would appear, if one accepts the dictum of that distinguished French savant, M. De Fleury. This eminent pathologist has written a work entitled 'Introduction a la Medicine de l'Esprit,' and therein contends that it is the province of medicine to minister to minds diseased as well as to mere bodily ailments. The disorders of the psychic half of man are quite as important as those of the romantic ha]f, which is merely a pedantic way of saying that mental distresses are as keen and real as bodily ones. In his chapter on 'La Medicine dcs Passions' M. Henry says:—'Love is a physiological phenomenon which enters the domain of pathology the moment it assumes the sentimental 'form. Do we not habitually say, "So-and-so is madly in love?" This passion, which is beyond the control of sense, in face of which reason loses her rights and her powers, is incontestably a human malady.' The symptoms of I'amour-maladie, M. De Fleury g-ravely reports are similar to those of alcholism and morphine mania. Everyone will see upon examination of the facts, he says, that the pathological processes are absolutely identical in each ease. No lover will willingly take M. De Fleury's cure for love, which is identical with that proposed for alcoholism —separation. But the savant, if he has his way, will not permit the lover to depart from the question. He will, perhaps, call in the law to aid him, and establish courts of love lunacj', and establish decrees of separation not of the married, but to the wishing-to-be-wed. There will be no nonsense about it. The patient will not be allowed to

'taper off' as the drunkard so often wishes to do and so seldom succeeds in doing. He may, again, like the drunkard, have prescribed for him a substitute drug. In an inebriate asylum drugs are used to keep a man suddenly deprived of his rum from gong to pieces with delirium tremens. So in the amatory asylum mild flirtation with a corps of pretty nurses may save Edwin from going completely crazy over the lost charms of Angelina until time cures them of the wound and he walks forth healed. M. Henry's efforts should now be concentrated upon the discovery of the bacillus of love. When he has achieved that he will be able, of course, to render poor humanity impervious to the disease by inoculation.