Three Wives and Four Religions.

Evening Star, Issue 6863, 29 March 1886, Page 4

Three Wives and Four Religions.

A telegram from St. Louis to the New York 'Weekly Tribune,' dated December 21, relates the following extraordinary story : —" A. D. Campbell until recently occupied the position of Professor of Languages in the St. Charles College, one of the leading schools in Missouri. Yesterday he wrote a confession over his own signature, which was published to-day in a newspaper of St. Charles. From this it appears that he comes of a good family in England, and received a thorough collegiate education. He was alienated from his family by joining the Catholic Church and studying for the priesthood. His career as a priest was cut short by the Church, and he was deposed. He then became a private tutor, and in 1872 went to South America, and there joined a whaling expedition to the North Pacific. In 1874 he returned to England, married a woman, deserted her in six months, and went to South Africa, where he became a teacher in St. Andrew's College, Cape Town. In 1877 he married again, and was made head of a Government school, and pastor of an Episcopal Church in Cape Colony. Exposure came, and he was arrested for bigamy, and spent the next two years in the penitentiary. He turned Catholic in the prison, and was made superintendentof theSundayschool. When he was released his first wife secured a divorce, and the second one refused to live with him. He was sent by the Catholic Church to Australia, where he abandoned the Church, and started a billiard-hall and dram-shop in Melbourne. He failed at this, and secured a position as teacher in St. Alfred's College (sic), a Methodist institution. He led a gay life for a time, but stopped dissipation, and became engaged to an estimable young woman. Exposure came before the day for the marriage, and he sailed to England. He arrived in America in July, 1882, and was appointed a teacher in the Burlington Military College at Burlington, N.J. He became a lay reader in the Episcopal Church, and was officially connected with the Freehold Institute, N.J. He next appeared as head professor at St. Barnabas's College, Omaha, and then

went to Chicago, but, finding nothing to suit him, went East, ond married a young woman in Pennsylvania. At Poughkeepsie (N.Y.) he was at the head of a young ladies' boarding school. Last spring he went to St. Charles, and was made Professor of Languages in the college. For some time all went well; then rumors of past misconduct were circulated. An investigation was held, and the professor was dismissed. He then came out with his confession, which shows that he has three wives living, and a child with each wife; has professed four varieties of religious belief, and travelled nearly the world over.