Hughes-Hallett Scandal.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 54, 15 October 1887, Page 4

Hughes-Hallett Scandal.

A epecial message from London states: —Society is stirred to its depths by another scandal of some magnitude Colonel Hughes-Hallett, Conservative member of Parliament for Rochester, is the principal person concerned. He is now husband of an American lady, but was formerly {Worried to the widow of Lord Justice Selwyn. He. is now accused of having ruined his stepdaughter, Miss SelWJn, who expects shortly to become a mother. The intrigue was discovered in a Country house, where they were both staving. Miss Selwyn Is young and ric&. She recently transferred £l5OOO to Colonel Hughes-Hallett. Her brother, Captain Charles William Seiwyn, the Conservative Member for Wisbeach, North Cambridgeshire, consulted bis solicitor, and meanwhile the money had been restored. It is believed that Mrs Hughes-Hallett will seek a divorce. The case has caused

great excitement in Clubs and in society, where all the persons are well known. The Pall Mall Gazette exhorts the Government to expel Colonel Hughes-Hallett from Parliament, Colonel Hallett is 48 years of age, and Captain Selwyn 27. The former commands the Second Brigade, Southend Division, of the Royal Artillery, and the latter is in the Royal Horse Guards (Blue). ColonelHallett, who has been charged with seducing his step daughter, Miss Selwyn, admits the truth of the main accusation, but says the girl is not his step-daughter, but step-daughter of

his first wife, Lady Selwyn. The Gazette says that Miss Selwyn was first seduced at Colonel Hallett’s own house. The Tory Society papers, in commenting on the story, say the matter is of secondary importance. Mr W. H. Smith, leader of the House of Commons, denies that either he or the Ministerial whips have whitewashed Colonel Hughes-Hallett. The Gazette exhorts Mr W. H. Smith to vindicate the honor of the House of Commons by moving the expulsion of Col. Hughes-Hallett. The following particulars were lately given by the writer of “ Social Gossip ” in the Argus regarding Colonel HughesHallett :—“ Buffalo Bill, who is past master in the art of booming,’ has entrusted his interests in the political and journalistic world to Mr A. Broadly and Colonel Hughes-Hallett, M. P. for Rochester, and he could not have made a more judicious selection if be had lived in England for years. Colonel Hughes-Hallettistheonly man on record who won fortune and fame by amateur acting and nothing else. As a slim and handsome artillery man, he played ‘young lovers’ in garrison theatricals,'and on one of these occasions attracted the admiration of a rich and lovely widow, Lady Selwyn, widow of a Lord Justice of Appeal. They married, but in a few years their union was (dissolved by death, and the beau sabreur found himself in the strange position of father to four families. The lady had originally married a widower with a family, the Rev. Dr Dupre, rector of Richmond. She and he had a family, and after his death she married Lord Justice Selwyn, by whom she had another family ; and then she married Hughes-Hallett, by whom she had a third family in addition to the stepchildren of "her original family. The afflicted widower, however, managed to shunt the whole four families on to other relations, and in course of time his fine acting and handsome person won him a second wife—this time an American heiress of vast wealth and mature charms, and by the aid of her money and his own elocutionary powers, developed on the amateur stage, he won a seat in the House for Rochester, and has proved himself a speaker of the first quality. His position from the first has been exceptional, and be is, at this moment, the hero of the House, not only as the bear-leader of Buffalo Bill—but as the saviour of the Government, who, but for a wonderful forty minutes spin of impromptu eloquence, would have been defeated in tneir first division in Committee on the Coercion Bill.”]