A FAMOUS SCANDAL RECALLED.

Evening Star, Issue 13038, 5 February 1907, Page 6

A FAMOUS SCANDAL RECALLED.

Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. , LONDON, February 4. (Received February 5, at 8-15 a-m.) The death is announced of Florence Cecilia Hastings, widow of the Marquess of Hastings, who eloped while betrothsd to Mr Chaplin. [The above ■will recall one of the most sensational incidents of the late sixties. The Marquess of Hastings was a noted voung aristocrat, the tales of whose dissipations and extravagances filled the personal columns of a section of the Press. One day London was thrilled with the announcement that the beautiful Lady Florence, youngest daughter of the Marquees of Anglesey—also a very '' gay " member of society—-bad left her carriage at one door of a large store, and passing through the latter had gone out at another door, near which was a second carriage containing the Marqaess of Hastings. The runaway match was not attended with mnch happiness. Mr Chaplin, to whom the young lady was formally engaged, vowed revenge—so the gossips said—and obtained it in a sensational form. His horse Hermit, an outsider, won the Derby, defeating the favorite-, which was owned by the Marquess, and on which every penny piece and more that the Marquess possessed had been invested. The Marquess shortly after blew out his brains, his widow married Sir George Chetwynd, and their daughter in turn married that eccentric extravagant, and strango being the Marquess of Anglesey, whose estate and affairs and death were a year or two back dißcnssed all c*»rr the world. Mr Chaplin alone seems to have survived the pressure of early days. He became a Cabinet Minister, a tariff reformer. Mr Joseph most ardent cham pion, and is to-day known to the world as the Right Hon. Henry Chaplin, P.C., J.P., D.L., and ex-M.F.]