THE BLACK HORSEMAN BUSY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 5, 7 January 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE BLACK HORSEMAN BUSY.

' FOUR NOTABLES DEAD AND SIX SUICIDES ANNOUNCED IN ONE DAY. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, November 25. The phenomenally mild and unsea- | sonable weather we are experiencing does uot seem to be good either for health or spirits judging- by the extraordinary number of deaths and suicides. The length of the obituary column in the 'Times' 'tells a significant tale, and wherever one g-oes one hears of sickness. No family is icomj plete without a case of pleurisy or I pneumonia or catarrh. On Monday last what Mr Kipling would call the 'pegging out' of four notables and six I suicides was chronicled in the moruI ing paper. The notables were The I Lord Chamberlain (Lord Lathom), Sir I George Baden Powell. M.P., Sir Stuart I Knill, Bart, (an ex-Lord Mayor of Lon- ! (ion), aud Dr. Kane, the High Priest of Belfast Orangeism. Tlie suicides included an abnormally vain and foolish little barmaid, the secretary of a uuion whose accounts had gone wrong, and four individuals who, beyond irrational hysteria, seemed to have no ren-sons nt all for self-destruction. Lord Lathom was a very handsome man and an ideal Lord Chamberlain. He bad travelled a great deal, knew how to deal with foreigners, and could settle at once knotty questions of precedence as they arose; and had the happy knack of refusing impossible requests without, making great ladies angry. Mr Disraeli, on whose recommendation he was made an earl, had the highest regard for him, and regarded him justly as an inimitable host. At his house in Portland Place he gathered round him men and women of light and leading-, and, like most of his children, he was very fond of music. It was that probably which iirst at--1 tracted the family to St. Andrew's. I Wells-street, where for a quarter of a century they have been worshippers. It was, however, at Lathom House, of i whose romantic history and present I comforts he was alike proud, that he was seen at the best. Though not one of the trio of rich peers who own land in Liverpool, Lords Derby, Salisbury, and Sefton, it fell to liis lot almost I more than to anyone of late years to entertain politicians. ecclesiastics, or other celebrities who came to speak in the city on the banks of the Mersey. One and all speak of the house as the most comfortable to stop in because both Lord and Lady Lathom made their guests so thoroughly at home. He rode well, was an excellent judge of cattle, .vas proud of his dairy farm and had orchids which even Mr Chamberlain might envy. He was very fond of American bowls, and visitors were always invited to play at the game before dinner. The entrance-hall, the staircases, and various rooms were full of priceless - treasures he had brought back from foreign travels; but more than all these he valued pictures of his celebrated ancestors, which adorned the walls. He kept himself well en rapport with the current literature of the day and there were few: subjects on -vhich he could not give an intelligent opinion. With Sir George Baden Powell's career I deal elsewhere: Sir Stuart Knill w-as a fervent Roman Catholic and for that cause bigots tried to oppose his election as Chief Magistrate. Theif effort.., however, proved ineffectual and he served a brilliant twelvemonth. On the occasion of the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of York the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs met the Royal couple at St. Paul's and escorted them through the city. The King and Queen of Denmark, who were in London for the wedding of their grandson, visited the Guildhall and were received by Lord Mayor Knill on the part of the Corporation. A painful national event in Sir S. Kuill's Mayoralty was the loss of H.M.s. Victoria,, with over four hundred liven, necessitating the raising of a Mansion House Fund for the relief of the widows and orphaus. to which £ SO,OOO was subscribed. A notable banquet was that, to Cardinal Yaughan and the Roman Catholic Bishops of the province. It was an exclusively Roman Catholic festivity, but the Lord Mayor got into trouble over it with the Corporation and others for proposing as the first toast 'The Holy Father and the Queen.' No one doubted his loyalty, and his explanation that it was the usual Catholic formula.—equivalent, to the time-honoured toast 'Church and Queen' —was generally accepted. Of Dr. Kane it is merely necessary to remark he was very influential, and, from my point of view, very mischievous. The Westminster 'Gazette' says: — 'The Rev. R. R. Kaue. L.L.D., the famous Grand Master of the Belfast Orangemen, who died suddenly on Sunday evenink, had a magnificent physique, a sonorous voice, and a commanding presence. He was very generally regarded as one of the most eloquent preachers in.the Irish Protestant Church. Dr. Kane was suddenly seized with the illness which terminated his life just as he had finished the writing of a sermon on Reformation Principles. He was actively engaged in the controversies of the time, a strong opponent of Home Rule, an enemy-of Ritualism, and an advocate of Financial Reform in .Ireland. Within the last three months he had taken an active part. for. Mr Corbett, the independent. Unionist candidate, in the election for North Down, and ten days ago left the room during a speech of the Lord-Lieutenant in Belfast to indicate his disapproval of the Lord-Lieutenant's advocacy of a Catholic University.' AN ABNORMALLY VAIN BARMAID'S DEATH. The barmaid who drowned herself was Agues Young, aged IS. She left behind a most extraordinary letter, of which the following are fragments: — 'My Dear Mother, —Please forgive me for what lam going to do. When you read this I shall have joined my father in Paradise, if such a place-exists." Do not- be cross. I cannot help myself; it is too kite. Please write at once to G.M. and give him this message, my fondest love, and let him know that it is chiefly through love of him I am doing- this. Also ask him if it is possible to attend my funeral. Give my love to 8., A., and N„ and ask them to be present at my interment. . . . Put my funeral off as long as possible so as to allow as many as possible to attend, and also show 8.E., when,he comes to see me, the brooch.—E. A. Young. 'Tell B. to g-ive N. an extra kiss from me as the last. 'P.S.—Please put my death in as many papers as possible, and when you put my name on the stone, after my name put in "Sheila Desmond," so

1 that everybody shall know who I was. J See. put "Edith Agnes Young, Sheila i Desmond."—E. A. Young.' ' It transpired at the inquest that The I deceased imagined a connection with a gentleman unnamed, and accused him of rendering- her enceinte. As a matter of fact, he had hardly spoken to her and doctors would depose that the girl was not and never had been enceinte. Ir was an hallucination. The jury returned the usual suicide verdict.