"THE DRUCE BUBBLE."

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 67, 18 March 1908, Page 6

"THE DRUCE BUBBLE."

"MISS" ROBINSON CONFESSES. DIARIST AS AUTHORESS. ADVENTURES OF A BIBLE. I (From Oar Special Correspondent.) ! LONDON, February 7. ; "The Daily Chronicle's" trenchant atI tack on George Hollamby Druce, and his | legal friends, Messrs. T. K. V. Coburn and J. Sheridan, resulted, as one confidently anticipated, in that paper being threatened with a libel action. On Saturday last the "Chronicle" was informed that Mr. Coburn and Mr. Druce had instructed a firm of solicitors to issue a writ. Commening on the solicitors' letter, the "Chronicle" "hastened to assure" the writer and his clients that it was ready to receive the writ, and quite prepared to substantiate the statements made in the article to which Messrs. Druce and Coburn take exception. The "Chronicle" proceeds to "dot the I's ano. cross the T's" of that- article by reproducing the most libellous passage therein in black type, and inviting investigation. Whether the "Chronicle" will be put to the trouble and expense of defending an action for libel by Messrs. Druce and Coburn is a matter for speculation. Meanwhile, the Druce case has provided another sensation, for "Miss" Robinson has confessed. This news was conveyed to the public by Sir Charles Mathews when he again appeared in the role of prosecutor in the perjury case against the Druce diarist at Bow-street on Tuesday. Sir Charles stated at the outset of the proceedings, which were purely of a formal character, that the prisoner had made a full confession of her guilt, and by that information had confirmed all the material circumstances which he had referred to in his original statement of the case against her.

Miss Robinson's confession seems to have done her good; at any rate, she looked considerably brighter than at the previous hearing, aud had lost that dazed and vacant look which lent some colour to the suggestion of her whilom solicitor, Mr. Kimber, that her mental faculties were disarranged. She was again remanded in custody till next Tuesday. A STUDY IN CONTRASTS. Here are set forth point by point the material statements made on oath by ""Miss" Robinson during the perjury proceedings against Herbert Druce, together with Sir Charles Mathews' replies thereto:— Miss Robinson: My name is Mary Robinson, and I am fifty-six years of age, having been born in May. 1851. Sir 0. Mathews: Her maiden name was Mary Anu Webb: she is sixty-six years of age. and was born in .May 25, IS4I. Miss Robinson: My father owned a | negro plantation in South America, and i was killed in the Civil War. His name was John Robinson, and my mother's ' name Louise Alexandra Robinson, i Sir C. Mathews: Her father was James i Webb, a police superintendent, living at I Wandsworth, and she was born there. j Miss Robinson: I have no brothers or I sisters living. Sir C. Mathews: She had several sisters 1 and brothers, some of whom are still I alive. j Miss Robinson: I am unmarried. Sir 0. Mathews: She was married on | March 17, 1863. to a butcher, William Robinson, of Leeds, at tne parish church; [ and they have had several children, some j of whom died. Miss Robinson: I paid a visit from | America to England in 1861 at the age ! of ten, and was then keeping a diary. i I paid a second visit to England in IS6S | on the advice of Charles Dickens, who I was then (May, IS6S) in Boston, U.S.A., : for the purpose of becoming the outside [ correspondent of "Mr. Druce," otherwise the fifth Duke of Portland. Sir C. Mathews: From 1863 until 1868 Mrs. Robinson was living near Leeds with her husband. Miss Robinson: On reaching England 1 again met Mr. Charles Dickens, who per ' sonally introduced mc to the fifth Duke ! of Portland, calling him Mr. Druce. 1 I continued to perform my secretarial duties for him until IS7O. Sir C. Mathews: So far from fulfilling ' these strange duties for a nobleman, she was all the time praiseworthily looking 1 after the interests of her husband and I children. Her husband became a shepj herd to the Duke of Portland, and lived I with her at Worksop, and an infant son | of theirs died there in 1872. Miss Robinson: I met "Mr. Druce" | (the duke) at Tuubridge Wells and at [ Richmond, York, and Doncaster. He gave mc a piano. He sang at a fancy | ball "I'm Ninety-five" and "Johnny ' Sands." I received letters for him ad- i dressed to "Mme. Tussand," the name < Dickens said I was to take. He always had a beard when he came to see mc. At i the Black Boar at Nottingham he told 1 mc he was the Duke, and had twice married women beneath his own station and by both had children. Sir C. Mathews: A tissue of falsehoods. Miss Robinson: In ISBI I went to Bombay and the Punjab, thence to Hongkong, thence to Madras. Sir C. Mathews: The whole of that i statement was false. Miss Robinson: In I8f)2 I went to New Zealand for the sake of my health. Sir C. Mathews: Also false. She has post-dated her arrival in New Zealand by 24 years. The fact is, she left Eng- ! land on June 16, 1574, with her husband and their two surviving children, sailing in the emigrant ship Tweed from Lon°- ) don. In 1575 they were living at Wai- . mate (N.Z.), and a daughter was born \ to them there in that year, who is. still 1 living, ©n May 4, 1881, another daugh- , ter wap, born, named Maud, who in" this, ' case has passed as her "companion," and ,'

gave the name "Miss O'Neill." Mrs. Robinson did not leave New Zealand until the early part of 1907. "When her lodgings in London came to be searched," Sir Charles Mathews said, in concluding his statement at the Police Court on January 25, "there were found there all that one would expect to have found in a workshop for the manufacture of false evidence."' "DIARIST" AS "AUTHOR." It is understood that at a later stage in the ease against -'Miss" Robinson a very extraordinary story will be told | of how the famous diary, which the lady swore was stolen from her, came to be , concocted. "Miss" Robinson appears to \ have had a penchant for writing, and in [ i Tuesday's "Chronicle" there appeared the "History of a Bible" from her pen. L It is a peculiar document, and in view of the lady's evident facility for inven- > tion, its accuracy is certainly open to ; question. The "history" was addressed to the ; "Trustees of the Mortlake National Schools, Surrey, England," from 112, > Montreal-street, Christchurch, N.Z., and , in a covering letter "Miss" Robinson tells the trustees that the Bible referred to t was one presented to her by H.R.H. the . Duchess of Gloucester "as a reward for diligence and good conduct" during the time she was a pupil at the Mortlake ; Schools. We are told that it is "a very | pretty Bible closed with a gold clasp," which was the envy of her sister pupils, and "was admired by the surrounding I gentry and also by the Royal Family at Kew." ; "Miss" Robinson proceeds to relate how she went to Yorkshire and got married, and then sailed for New Zealand. The voyage out is described, particular stress being laid on incidents in which the Bible played a part. We find "Miss" Robinson comforting a dying "FrenchProtestant sailor" by reading to him "The Dying Thief,"' eating a flying fish which flew on board to escape dolphins (it tasted, she says, like "white herring," whatever that may be), encountering sperm whales (at a safe distance) and icebergs, and taking quite a leading part in the captain's birthday party. The captain's after-supper speech on this auspicious occasion, as rendered by "Miss" Robinson, was really a gem in its way: "I address all present. To-day I am 45 years of a;;e. I have not spent a birthday upon the high seas for 10 years. The night is one of the events of my life. We are, all on board, I believe, "loyal and faithful to our Queen and country. The reason I say this is that at this present moment we have on our ship a Bible which was presented to the owner by the Queen's aunt, the Duchess of Gloucester. I am now going to ask Mrs Robinson to read a portion of Scripture out of it." Then we get to New Zealand, but the ady forgets to say exactly where she landed. It was, however, a beautiful spot, and the passengers were duly landed m surf boats manned by Maoris, who eventually gave the ladies pick-a-back rides to the shore. Then " Miss " .Robinson and her family party had a 40-mile ride across country in a covered dray drawn by twenty yoked bullocks, and it seems to have taken them about three weeks to do the journey. She does not name the place to which they went, but it was such a lonely place that for weeks she saw nobody save her husband and children. By and bye, however, she encountered a Maori lady, whose husband was a white man. They were very pleased to see her, but their children fled into the bush at the sight of the stranger. Soon the Maori lady tad Mrs. Robinson became fast friends, the former teaching the new chum " many things which improved my comfort," and in return Mr.-. Robinson taught her new friend " how to sew and knit, which added greatly to her personal appearance and comfort." AMONG THE MAORIS. Presently the famous Bible put in its appearance, and was duly admired by the Maori lady who, though the happy possessor of a New Testament in her own language, had never seen an Old Testament. Apparently the Maori woman carried the news of Mrs. RobinSon's precious possession to a tribe of Maoris who, " headed by a chief," lived at a pa about 2_ miles away, for we read:—"A day or two later she came in a great hurry to see mc. " I have got an invitation foi you from our chief,' she said, as she presented it to mc. It was written in Maori, but I could make it out after a while. So I said I would be most happy to go next day." | She went and was most hospitably en tertained, a full description of her first I meal among the Maoris being given, as I well as a brief account of a war dance got up in her honour, which thing proi duced in her " a fear that I cannot deI scribe." But all this was only- preliminary to the great event of her visit—the exhibition of the precious Bible:— '" My Maori friend now came up towards mc, and numbers of them followed behind. The chief said in a loud voice as the Maoris sat down: 'You will have to show them it. Yes, you must.' Now, I know my friend had let out the secret, and that they were preparing to see my Bible. My Maori friend said to the chief: ' Our English friend has something to show us wdiich will interest us ail.' So she unrolled her feather mat which she carried with her and laid it on the grass. Then I got my Bible and laid it on the mat. In the Maori tongue my friend told them who was the giver, that it was the aunt of the Great White Queen, their Mother. They knelt down and worshipped it, for they could not read it, at the same time singing a hymn in their own tongue. I was now asked to read out of it in English, while the chief translated it into Maori. I read and expounded as well as I could the parable of the Ten Virgins. They were much interested. Then 1 laid my Bible down again. They all, in their own tongue, prayed most earnestly lor the Great White Queen, and that she would send Bibles to their land and other holy books." A GREAT HONOUR. Then Mrs. Robinson waxes quite poetic about her life in New Zealand, which seems to have consisted to a considerable extent in wandering in "the shady bush with her children" by day and entertaining lonely wanderers by her log fire at night "with verses read from my Bible." The conclusion of the -'history" is really "too sweet" to scamp, or paraphrase: — "Now my sous and daughters are grown up, and, I am thankful to say, value our Bible. The year 1901 has come. People say that Royal visitors are coming to Christchurch, and that the people will be expected to receive them right royally. The Royal visitors are to be the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York. A thought strikes mc?. I will write to the Duchess and tell her tha history of my Bible. I do this, to get a reply which ia as follows:— "To Koraha, Christchttrch, New Zealand. June 22ud. 1901. The, Lady-iu-Waiting

is desired by her Royal Highness th* Duchess of Cornwall and York, to acknowledge Mrs. Robinson's letter and t" say that her Royal Highness was much interested to hear the history of the Bible given by the Duchess of Gloucester." How pleased I feel; and now the duchess must sec my Bible. So it U given into her hands by Lady Ma ry Lygon, her lady-in-waiting. Now it has passed through the hands of royalty once more, from great aunt to gr ea t niece, and in the Antipodes, 13,000 miles from where it was given to mc. I feel highly honoured."' In concluding, "Miss" Robinson says--, "When I was a. child I nrized tha Bible. At your church I used it regular ly. In the early days the Maori in tha pa listened to its words. When a y ouns colonist it was a light to my feet and a guide to my path. My children have read out of its pages, and now, as a grandmother and old colonist, I leave it a heirloom to my family." ' The final pasage of the Druce diarist's "history" of her Bible is truly "great" in view of the recent Police Court de. velopments.