Dearly Bought Success.

Evening Star, Issue 7652, 30 June 1888, Page 4

Dearly B ought Success.

In May last there died at the London Hospital, in Whitechapel road, Mr William Shirley Shirley, lately M.P. for Doncaster. He was (as we learn from the London correspondent of the ‘ Argus ’) an industrious and rather pushing young barrister of no great ability, who won the seat at Doncaster in 1885 chiefly owing to the popularity of his father, who was a solicitor in a large way of business, and “town clerk” of the borough. He managed, for the same reasons, to survive the general election of 1886, lighting against a powerful Unionist attack, led by the surrounding landlords and capitalists, sucli as the Gathorne Hardys and the Fitz-Williams. But the victory was the destruction of the whole family. His father was shortly afterwards found to be short in his cash on an examination of his accounts. A brother lost his reason, and laid hands upon himself. Mr William Shirley Shirley battled on bravely for a time against this accumulation of misfortune. He took upon himself to discharge his father's obligations, made good the public money which was missing, divesting himself of all his money and incurring crushing liabilities. Early this year his increasing poverty compelled him to resign his seat in Parliament, so that he might devote bis energies to this effort to support himself and those dependent on him by practice at the Bar. He took a fractional share in a set of chambers in the Temple, living himself in one room at a lodging-house in a distant and obscure part of London. Here his mind appears to have, in some degree, given way under the strain of calamity, and, although desperately ill in body, he shut himself up and refused the proffered kindness of the kindly people with whom he lodged. At last they persuaded him to seek some medical relief, his landlord taking him in a cab to St. Thomas’s Hospital. He proved to be deranged on the journey, and was only persuaded to continue it by the diplomacy of a policeman. When, however, he arrived at the hospital he was refused admission, being delirious ; and then in a lucid interval, besought the advice of a physician in Queen Anne stieet whom he had known in his prosperous days. The consultant, being connected with the London Hospital, thought it best to send him there—distant as it was—because he could make sure of his admission. In four hours after he came there he died, being found to be suffering from peritonitis, typhoid fever, and congestion of the lungs. Mr Shiiley was formerly somewhat prominent as “an open air politician,” bnt he broke with the others of that description over the Trafalgar square question. The Unionists, as will be remembered, won the seat vacated by his resignation. During the contest it was made a charge against the Gladstonian candidate that poor Shirley’s bills, given in discharge of his father’s debts, had been bought up and used as an instrument of torture to force on his resignation. But the allegation was denied ; and it seems too black for human nature. ____________