LONDON TABLE TALK.

Evening Star, Volume 8505, Issue 8505, 2 May 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

LONDON TABLE TALK.

Nemo,

[From Ode Special Correspondent.]

London, March 21

Sir Charles dike’s candidature for the Forest of Dean and the republication of the report of the Chesson Committee which reviewed the new evidence, etc., collated by the unfortunate statesman after the close of the Crawford case, has led to howls of horror from “ that good man Stead ” and tKe * Pall Mall Gazette,’ otherwise Mr E. T. Cook. These two worthies, animated as usual by “the purest motives,” have, satisfactorily to themselves, re-tried the whole affair and re-convicted their old enemy. What Mr Mr Cook’s grudge against Sir Charles may be I don’t know. Stead’s, of course, is an open secret. He has for years pursued Dilke with untiring malignancy, stabbing him constantly in the sorest places, and chuckling fiendishly over the knowledge that the fallen man upon whom he gleefully tramples has his bands tied behind his back, and cannot retaliate.

Sir Charles is a good friend to the Australian colonies, and should have many Antipodean admirers. At the risk, therefore, of shocking some who may have fancied him a wholly innocent as well as a much wronged man, I have determined to tell you what I and many others believe to be the truth concerning the Crawford imbroglio. When Mrs Crawford fathered the story of her intrigue with Captain Forster on to Sir Charles Dilke, that gentleman found himself (as the lady calculated) in a most difficult position. The charges concerning Mrs Crawford were untrue, but his own hands were not clean, A lie which is half a lie ia ever the blackest of lies, For a lie which ia all a lie may be met and fought with

outright; But a lie which Is half a truth is a harder matter to fight. One can see now that Sir C. Dilke’s wisest course would have been to go into the witness box and face all, but at the time this did not appear so obvious. To prove, or rather to try and prove, that Mrs Crawford’s story was Jalse, Sir Charles would have had to admit that certain things not so bad, but unquestionably eminently discreditable, were true. He would be obliged (in order to show why Mrs Crawford hated and maligned him) to tell the painful story of a j'outhful indiscretion with the lady’s mother. Nor was that all. _ If the mysterious Fanny went into the witness box she would deny ever having seen Mrs Crawford in her life, and effectually dispose of the disgusting three-in-a-bed story, but she would have to confess to having been Sir Charles Dilke’s mistress.

The circumstantiality with which Mrs Crawford told her story strongly impressed people at the time, “ The woman couldn’t have invented such a diabolic narrative,” ’twas said. Nor did she. But, to save the reputation of the man she loved (Forster), Mrs Crawford simply substituted the name of the man whom she made no secret of hating. It has always surprised mo that the prima fade absurdity of the manner in which Mrs Crawford alleged that she and Sir Charles carried on their love affair did not strike people more. One has heard of many queer rendezvous, but surely theirs was the oddest and the riskiest ever known. That the lovers should not be discovered or disturbed was imperative for the sake of both their reputations. sTefc Mrs Crawford seriously wishes us to believe that Sir Charles (then a busy Cabinet Minister, keeping three secretaries going) selected his own house at eleven in the morning as a suitable venue of their secret meetings. “ Of course ” (Sir C. Dilke’s secretary said to me once), “ you can’t realise as I can the outrageous silliness of the tale. Sir Charles at 11 a.m. waa up to the ears in business. Besides the hundred and one ordinary things to be attended to, messages, telegrams, and what not, needing instant attention, were arriving every moment. Sir Charles could not possibly leave the room for ten minutes without having one or other of ua after him, and we should have thought nothing of running up to his bedroom, if necessary. The notion of the busy Minister wasting time at such an hour watching for Mrs Crawford in the conservatory over the porch is nearly as ridiculous as to suppose that he could have let her in himself without the footman, whose duty it was in the morning to stay in the hall and open the door, seeing him.” The men on the cab rank immediately facing Sir C. Dilke’s house scout the notion that Mrs Crawford could have come there in the eccentric manner she alleges she did—t e., dismissing her hansom at the street corner walking the few yards to the house, and never ringing—without some of them at some lime noticing. They knew then, and know now, nearly all Sir Charles’s visitors. A person of his eminence cannot bide his ordinary doings in obscurity like you or I. Sir Charles and Lady Dilke live in the hope that Mrs Crawford will one day repent and confess. If the baronet’s own hands had been quite clean he would have prosecuted the woman for perjury ; but as you can imagine, under all the circumstances, it would be inadvisable. Even the ‘St. James’s’ and the ‘Standard’ are at last disgusted at the lengths to which Stead is carrying his persecution of Sir C. Dilke. Robert Buchanan writes to the former“ Who is the moat sinful ? who deserves most contempt and execration from society ?—the man who, swept away by the torrent of evil passions, becomes personally a criminal, bespattered from head to foot by filth of his own making ; or the man who, scenting the filth from afar off, multiplies it tenfold by filth of his own invention, parades it in the name of virtue, and fills society with ordure from the social sewers ? The first man sins and takes his punishment; the second man—the prurient Puritan—stirs the filth and pollutes the very air we breathe. In common with thousands of your readers, I have peruSed the * manifesto ’ against Sir Charles Dilke issued by the extreme Puritans, the well-poisoners, the advocates of eternal punishment and eternal spite. I have already stated, in another connection, that I would condemn no man finally on any evidence produced in the Divorce Court —that chamber of hypocrisy, casuistry, and lies; but whether Sir Charles Dilke be innocent (as he asserts) or guilty (as his opponents would have us believe), I think the time has come when he may fairly be considered to have expiated his real or supposed offences against society. No living man, perhaps, has been so tremendously punished. Is it not time, therefore, to cry to his tormentors ‘ Forbear!’ I bear no personal love to Sir Charles Dilke; indeed 1 have reason, and good reason, to regard him as a personal and not too generous foe; but I would rather stand in the pillory with him than join the Melchiors and Chadbands, the Well-poisoners and Journalists in Absolution, who pelt him with mud and rotten eggs and cry ‘ Let his punishment last for ever!” If conduct (as these persecutors affirm) is three parts of life, what shall we say of theirs ? How shall we assess the infamies of the ‘ unco gnde,’ who are just now filling the world with the base coin of mook morality, degrading literature, prostituting journa' ism, and caricaturing religion 7 The world suffers much from the infirmities of its sinners. It suffers far more, however, from the indecency, the malignity, the pitiless cruelty, and spitefnlaess of its self-styled 'saints.’ Fortunately, the bias of English fang has rtftf MV* Wwtiritii the dWta,

dants of Tartuffe, towards the dootrinaires of eternal malice and eternal punishment. The mass of Englishmen are generous to the erring and disposed to allow fair play even to the poor Devil. They believe, and justly, that the punishment of the criminal should end with the exit from the prison gate. Sir Charles Dilke has ‘ dree’d his weird ’ of shame and contumely. The hounds of justice caught him, fairly or unfairly, in the open. It is not just that he should be attacked, when just rising to his feet, by the whelps of the new journalism and the wild cats of prurient Puritanism.”

THE WILSONS AND SIR W. G. CDMMING.

The Solicitor-General and Mr Gill are spending portions of their leisure in studying the mysteries of baccarat, in order that they may be able to do justice to their client, Sir W. Gordon-Cumming, in what promises to be the cause celehH of the decade. Many people who know the Wilsons believe, however, the case will never come to trial. According to current report, all the defendants save Mr Lycett-Green would be glad to end tie matter by apologising and withdrawing, The line they take up is that it seems, cm the whole, more probable that their eyes and their imaginations wore misled by some innocent eccentricity in Sir W. Gordon-Cumming’a play than that a gallant officer possessing such a splendid record should oe a blackleg. Mr Lycett-Green, however, declines to believe in the possibility of an optical delusion or a mistake. He, it will be remembered, was the hysterical gentleman who felt Sir W. G. Cumming’s conduct in “ sharping ” royalty to be so painful he had to leave the table at Tranby Croft on September 10, The accused baronet has been interviewed by the proprietor ot a washy little weekly sheet known as ‘ The Dwarf.’ He said very little of import, save that; “By G—d, he meant to see the thing through to the bitter end whatever happened,”

AN OLD STORY,

Here is an episode of the Hastings era. Shortly after the Marquis came of age he went to dine one evening with Captain Blank, of the Guards, a notorious gambler, but supposed to be the soul of honor. Two racing men (regular “bounders") were present, lota of champagne was drunk, and, after coffee and cognac, the host proposed a little “flatter,” Neither of the racing men won much, but' Captain Blank proved fortunate, landing the Marquis ultimately for L3/)00. Now hie lordship was no fool, and as the fumes of the wine cleared off, and he thought over the details of the game, he came to the conclusion he had been “rooked.” A consultation with a friend confirmed this view, and resulted in Lord Hastings stopping pro tern, the cheque he had given his friend. Next morning the Marquis, accompanied by a friend, called on Captain Blank. Hewasnot in, so they resolved to leave a note, which Lord H. went up into the drawing room to write. Blank had apparently just been writing too, for on the new blotting book was the impress of a note, which held up to the looking glass overmantel read thus: “ Had a good night at cards, and won L 1,200. My share was L 400; so, darling, I can,” etc., etc., etc. Evidently the party had cut up the plunder. The Marquis annexed, the sheet of _ blotting paper, which naturally materially simplified his interview with Captain Blank. That hero bounced for a bit, and then whined for mercy. This on certain terms he got, and the rascal now lives much respected as British Consul at . He had, of course, to make some excuse and leave the service, but hu secret was kept. Consideration for the fe'.low’a regiment rather than for himself influenced Lord Hastings.

‘LADY BOUNTIFUL,’

I was not able to get to the Garrick Theatre on Saturday evening, but judging from the newspaper notices Pinero’s ‘Lady Bountiful ’ will rank with 4 Sweet Lavender’ and ‘The Profligate’ as amongst ‘ 4 our leading dramatists’ ” most conspicuous successes. Mr Hare plays a part the exact antithesis of Benjamin Goldfinch in 4 A Pair of Spectacles.’ Roderick Heron is a selfish unprincipled old scoundrel of the genus Skimpole. Nominally, Mr Heron heads the household at Fauncourt, where the story opens ; but really he and his son Dennis are dependent on the bounty of Camilla Brent, the former’s niece, a young heiress to whom the whole property really belongs. By a good-uatured conspiracy, Dennis has been kept in ignorance of his father’s financial straits. Naturally this doesn’t answer. He in a failure at school and college, and appears to possess no ambition beyond taming refractory hunters. Camilla loves Dennis, but his lazy indifferentism drives her frantic, and when he ventures to propose she tells him bitterly she can only feel contempt for a man who is pursuing such an ignoble existence. Immediately after this an accident reveals to the young man his own and his father’s dependent condition. For years they have owed all to Camilla. Half stunned by the discovery, and now for the first time comprehending his cousin’s strictures, Dennis is nevertheless stung into prompt self-reliance and accepts a position as riding-master at an establishment at Knightsbridge, this being the only vocation for which his earlier years have fitted him. He is happy in the thought of gaining his own livelihood, and with Camilla’s reproaches still ringing in his ears, resolves to prove that he is not the confirmed lounger and useless creature she had taken him to be. Unfortunately for herself Margaret Veale, the only child of his employer, an acquaintance of former days, soon falls hopelessly fn love with the gentlemanly riding-master, who has become of much assistance to her father, and, when Roderick Heron, seeing the turn affairs are taking, brings Dennis’s relatives to the riding-school in the hope that he will be ashamed of his position, the young man, having unexpectedly discovered Margaret’s seciet, introduces Miss Veale to .them as his future wife. The next eighteen months bring many changes. Through being security for the unprincipled Roderick Heron—by the way, not at all a likely thing for a horse dealer to do, Mr Pinero !—the Veales have become bankrupt, and the riding academy has gone into other hands. Dennis is a father as well as a husband, and the hero and his connections by marriage are about to set out for America. Margaret has had a very severe illness, and it is evident she has not long to live. Her wedded existence was unclouded until one day she learned that Dennis had previously loved his cousin. This much she confesses when Camilla, who has been away from England, whilst passing through London homewards, accidentally discovers the lowly retreat of the Veales and Dennis in Westminster. Then ensues an extremely beautiful and touching scene, in which during a dialogue between the two women the dying wife expresses her wish that the evil she thinks she has done by consenting to marry Dennis shall be repaired after her death by Camilla accepting him, and gives the heiress a letter to this effect. Ignorant of this, the young father, hopeful that the voyage will benefit Margaret, is talking gleefully to the infant in its cradle when his hj ife, whilst sitting in her invalid’s chair, dies without a word, with her expiring gaze resting upon the pair she had loved most upon earth. The conclusion may be soon told, although Mr Pinero takes some time about it. During the five years that have ekpsed since the widower Dennis, the Veales, and his selfish grumbling father left for America, Sir Richard Philliter, a neighbor old enough to be her father and whom she has known since childhood, has so successfully pleaded his suit that Camilla has at length consented to be his bride. The scene of the last act is the church arranged for the ceremonial of the morrow. Here in the gloom of the evening the long absent and apparently long unheard of Dennis arrives to learn what has taken place since he quitted England. The curtain descends for a moment to _ mark the lapse of a night. When it reascends the sun is streaming through the windows lighting up the flower-decorated altar, and displaying to the beat advantage the dresses of the gentry, of the children, and of the villagers who have come to witness the marriage of “ Lady Bountiful otherwise Miss Camilla Brent —to Sir Richard Philliter, Q.O. The joy-bells are ringing, the congregation have filled the pa vs, and the bridal party have advanced w the altar rails when Camilla recognises Dennis as one of the spectators. She staggers back to the choir seats, and, crushing the bridal veil, hides her face in her bands, whilst Sir Richard advances, and, bending over her, says sympathetically and SfgDfflmntly, 44 Thfcre will vs no mar-

riage to-day; I think I know! ” Upon this the curtain quickly falls, the impression upon the mind of the spectator of course being that a short period hence the church will again be filled—this time to see Camilla led to the altar by her first lover, Dennis Heron,

Those of your readers who have during visits to England seen Mr Forbes Robertson and Miss Kate Borke will easily realise with what subtle sympathy they invest the parts of Dennis and Camilla. Miss Marie Linden plays the young wife, and Mr Charles Groves (her father) the horse dealer. Mr Somerset makes a safe Sir Richard Philliter, and three young members of notable theatrical families, Mr Gilbert Hare, Mr John Byron (H. J. Byron’s son), and Miss Webster (Ben Webster’s daughter) achieve success in minor parts. Mr W, Sapte’s * Mias Cleopatra ’ ran just six days at the Avenue Theatre, which will now remain dosed pending rehearsals of ‘ The Henrietta.’

Evidently Mr D’Oyly Carte has not unlimited faith in the forthcoming operetta at the Savoy, or he would not have arranged for the rights of the recent Paris success ‘La Bascoche.’ THE NEW PLAY AT TERRY’S THEATRE.

The plot of ‘ Culprits ’ is a silly, complex piece of business, and would take hours, or at least an hour, to fully describe. It revolves round two old couples, the Pendleeoops and the Raokshaws. Lady Pendlecoop has concealed from Sir Joseph (whom she recently wedded) that she was married before and has a grown-up son, Philip Ashton, who thinks her his maiden aunt. In the same silly way (and for no sane reason) Major Rackshaw has hidden a former marriage from hia bride, and likewise the existence of a strapping girl of seventeen, his daughter. The arrival of these superfluous children at the hotel where their respective parents are staying leads to an absurd imbroglio. Sir Joseph becomes wildly jealous of Ashton, whom he discovers kissing her ladyship, whilst Ashton fancies his maiden aunt is being persecuted with amorous proposals by the old man. Equally Major Rackshaw s parental tenderness for his secret daughter rouses Mrs Raokahaw’s ire. The rest can be imagined. Edward Terry as Rackshaw and Fred Raye as Pendlecoop did what they could for ‘Culprits,’ but I shouldn’t think it would draw long. ‘ Woodbarrow Farm ’ would have run a year played by Mr Hare’s company at the Garrick Theatre, but the Vaudeville cast is not strong enough to make it a great popular success. Mr Thorne, at any rate, has put ‘ Diamond Doan,’ by the American journalist H. J. Dam, in rehearsal. H. B. Conway (grown very fat and old-looking), the brothers Thorn, and Miss Millward will play leading roles.

LITERARY NOTES

Lola’s new novel 4 L’Argent ’ was published on Saturday last. It is supposed to contain a realistic series of studies of the Bourse, and may be briefly described as a boiling down of all the Stock Exchange scandals of the last twenty years. Prom the description of the reviewers I should think the story was quite one of the dullest of the Rougon-Macquart chronicles, and that is saying a good deal. According to a recent interviewer the great French novelist has commenced 4 La Guerre,’ and goes forthwith to Alsace-Lorraine in order to study the scenes of the Franco-Prussian campaign on the spot. Though not such a success as his last year’s tract, Professor Drummond’s 4 Pax Vobiscum’ has had a huge sale. A Yeovil bookseller, by the way, tells a story to the effect that a lady customer of his got mixed concerning the title of this pamphlet, and ordered him to send for “ dear Mr Drummond’s ‘Nux Vomica. 1 ” The new atlas which Cassells commence to issue serially on the 26th inst. promises to be a very superior production. It Is to be called the 4 Universal Atlas,’ will contain 117 large maps showing over 100,000 names, and be completed in twenty-eight monthly parts. Special care has been taken to give an accurate representation of recent colonial developments. This atlas, like most cheap things nowadays, was originally “ made in Germany,” where 200,000 copies have been sold. The cost of the ninety-six plates was over L 40.000, and Casselh are adding twenty-one more. It certainly sounds a serial worth subscribing to. The new M'Carthyite daily, the 4 National Press,’ made its appearance on Saturday last; Tim Mealy, whose practice has gone more or less to pieces through the Discrowned King’s machinations, taking the reins as editor. On the same day a Radical weekly, called ‘Up to Date,’ was brought out in London. Neither seems likely to sot the Thames afire, ‘The Social Life of Marie Bashkertseff,’ as gleaned from that erratic young person’s letters, is to be unveiled in one volume octavo shortly. Mrs J. H. Needell is perhaps Mrs Oliphant’s most dangerous rival in the domain of domestic fiction. Her two or three books—--4 Julian Karslake’s Secret,’ 4 Lucia, Hugh, and Another,’ and ‘The Story of Philip Methven ’—each achieved in turn a decided success, and now 4 Stephen Ellicott’s Daughter ’ calls forth unstinted praise from even the moat carping reviewer. Miss Bayly (“ Edna Lyall ”) sends Mrs Bradlaugh-Bonnor LSO towards the Bradlaugh memorial. The author of ‘We Two ’ says she subscribed three times _ to Mr Bradlaugh’s election funds, but thinks she has not done enough, so sends LSO as a personal gift to Mrs Bradlaugh-Bonnor with arequest that it should notbe used for Freethought purposes. “Edna Lyall” adds: “Those who slander Mr Bradlaugh can surely never have met him, or else they must have been blind. That anyone who had really talked with him should doubt his integrity seems to me incomprehensible. From such study of bis life and writings as I have been able to make I was prepared to find him strong and honorable, and I confess that on meeting me his extreme gentleness and oonsiderateness came to me as a surprise. Now that I am eight years older, and have had a little more experience of the hardness of life, it strikes me still more as being most wonderful that at such a time, in the height of parliamentary struggles, what chiefly impressed me should have been his quiet serenity and his kindly patience.”