ATTEMPTED ABDUCTION OF A PRIMA DONNA.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 63, 17 March 1881, Page 3

ATTEMPTED ABDUCTION OF A PRIMA DONNA.

♦: The attempted abduction of a prima donna was the subject of much gossip recently in Paris. The other evening, says the Home News, about the hour when Mademoiselle Bianchi was performing the title role in Broil's " Bianca " at the Opera House, her would-be-abductor was laying his plot before the artiste's coachman, and endeavoring by a bribe to induce him to enter into the scheme. The coachman assured the gentleman that he would do everything in his power to promote the suocess of the project. On the departnre of the stranger, the driver at once disclosed the circumstances to the managerial authorities at the theatre. The following night, after depositing Mdlle. Bi^nohi and her mother as usual at their residence, the coachman drove hastily to the rendezvous agreed upon, where the languishing lover had for some time been impatiently awaiting his arrival. Upon seeing the carriage, the man rushed np to the door, when he was instantly pounced upon by two detectives, and carried off to the police station. Upon investigation, he turns out to be a hair-brained lunatic, who for a long time past has been sending billets doux to the lady. He is now lodged in a lnnatio asylum.

There was a piano for sale in Woolloomooloo hist week (says the Sydney Bulletin), and a Herald advertisement oo«lly informed the respectable portion of out community that it was " the property of a young lady with handsomely carved legs, and patent percussion action. Same newly tuned, and thoroughly done up." Exactly 37 minutes past breakfast on the morning the above appeared, no less than 23 Young Men's Christian Association believers went " full tilt" for the piano, but never a one had the pluck to buy it. The owner of the Herald saw the advertisement, and hasn't eaten any breakfast since. " I never argy agin a suocess," Baid the late Artemus Ward. " When I see a rattleBnaix's head sticking out of a hole, I bear off to the left, and Bay to myßelf, ' That hole belongs to that saaix.' "