LONDON GOSSIP.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXI, Issue 10308, 29 March 1894, Page 2

LONDON GOSSIP.

•J [FROM CUE LONDON CORRESPONDENT.! I London, Feb, 2. A FATAL BLUNDER.. The death of that promising young { diplomatist. Sir Gerald Portal, in the hoyi d&y o£ iiis success* caeqo nnescpectad ahock to the public, very few of whom even knew he was ill. Portal had faced death during his eventful career in many forma. In Africa the natives believed he bore a charmed life, bo often bad bullets find arrows and nelsons failed, in their mission, and bo imuervious to the death- . dealing malaria did this magnificent I Englishman appear. Net it was left for I Sir' Gerald to die in his own house and ! his own bed, the victim —if the stories one i hears ’ be true—of as melancholy a ■ medical blunder as haa ever been ! made. Symptoms of fever declared thorns el vaa on Christmas Eve, .and were believed by both Sir Gerald himself and the doctors to be simply a recurrence of tho malaria' from which -he tad suffered recently in Uganda. Fed up in the usual manner, however, he got worse instead of better, and ultimately the disease pro- ! claimed itself unmistakable typhoid. The S treatment of the two fevers is diametrically | oppoeitej I am assured. You starve one and feed the other. Sir Gerald for several { days was the victim of a blunder, and big i constitution, already weakened by Africa, i failed to rebound.

t Sir Gerald Portal was a splendid speci- ! men of the beat English type—tall, afch- | ietic and commanding; the very man to i impress Savage races. His important : missions to Aoyeainia and Uganda were j most successful, and in many quarters j he was looked upon ae Lora Cromer’s likeliest understudy. After the manner of Stanley and most penetrators of the myS- ' teries of the heart of Africa, Postal was silent and austere, but (remarks the Telegraph) he understood and appreciated a j nice. ' His face would light up With a merry winkle when ho told you, for instance, how. on the way up to Zanzibar, the smooth-faced Captain “ Boday” Owen fell ill, and had to be carried wrapped in white coverings on a litter—the report spree ding everywhere 'that the Consul-General was ; bringing with him to the domain, of the ' Sultan a white lady of surpassing beauty. Towards the end of the arduous journey • the curiosity of his Majesty was piqued by the vivid rumours that reached him, and he lived in such expectancy that on arrival : the precious burden was eagerly sought i after and inspected. But, lo! during the | hot and wearisome march the smooth face had become sadly bristled and, by no ! means beautified, and there was a sad J awakening for those who lived in the hope I of welcoming the beautiful white lady. Like all African travellers. Portal at the start had great trouble with his native escort. Later be fell into the hands of, and'waa kept for some time a prisoner by, the notorious Abyssinian General Bag Alula. "When he reached the capital, however, he was received very civilly by , the King, and made very comfortable j during his stay. Hr Portal’s mission was I not regarded as a great success by the ! Italians, but to the tact he displayed in ■ dealing with King John no doubt was due i the promotion which came to him very ! soon afterwards. It was noted as a curious fact at the time that in the letter which he brought homo with him. King John addressed her Majesty as, “ by the grace of God, Queen of Irelcmd,(6Empreas of i India,” &0., and it was not unnaturally ■ supposed that some echoes of the Home ; Eule wrangle bad even reached the sable potentate of Ethiopia. REMARKABLE ADVENTURES. The Daily Telegraph recalls • soma of the remarkable details of Portal’s adventures whilst on the Abyssinian Mission. He took with him Veterinary-Surgeon i Beech now Captain, 20th Hussars ■— i and a faithful servant, -Hutchison. Almost at the outset the small party ! had to contend with the treachery of guides who, deliberately led them astray and then deserted them. Tho decision of character which formed a strong feature in the leader came out in this crisis. While considering whether to tie the ; guide to the' saddle or shoot him on the j spot, the fellow absconded, and with him ! the whole crow of native followers, “it I was lucky for those wretches,” he writes, “that our carbines were attached to our saddles at some yards distance.” After a succession of troubles duly recounted in “ My Mission to Abyssinia,” Portal, his two English companions, and his Egyptian interpreter, Ahmed Fehmy, were left in the pathless, waterless desert, with every chance of perishing, as did four years earlier Hicks Pasha and his 11,000 men. Water could be found nowhere. There was only one alternative, to return guide* less to the Italian camp. "At the moment,” when this resolution was come to, narrates Portal, “poor Ahmed Fehmy was making himself useful by sitting on a stone and moaning to himself!” His Arab nature' was not equal to the emergency. Before returning the mules were stripped and everything except the box J containing the Queen’s and Lord Salisbury’s letters was thrown away. Worn with anxiety, exhausted by fatigue, and still mote with thirst, they began their retreat. Sir Gerald writes “Already our tongues were refusing their wonted office, and the strongest voice that ; could,,,i33i\§ from ouc parched' throats j tbrough our blackened lips was a husky, j strained, vibilant whisper. Meanwhile Alimbd Fehmy' again and again fell | behind, and at', last' it was necessary to leave him. There'Was ho choice * * # Had I hesitated for a moment whether to j make! .one, mote halt, one more effort to ! firing Ahmed Fehmy along, a single glance at the fixed, staring eyeo, the pinched, drawn facet;, and the bent figures of my remaining followers would have sufficed to I convince me that but one order, could ho j given if any, of. us were to see the light of ' to-morrow’a sun~‘Pußh-on.’. . * # Ahmed Fehmy was afterwards found dead —the victim of want,of pluck; not hia ’ specially, but the mark of , his race. He had wafer and food later than We ; his lips ware red and oura were black, (Suh- ; Bcquentiy, the reader will ha pleased to | know, her Majesty’s Government made a grant of .3450 for the poor man’s family.) I “Hour by hourourdiminished party rode ! slowly on, under the burning sun, the only ! living and moving creatures in that vast scorching deadly wilderness, our eyes fixed | on the "ground, looking for every sign j which should tell us we were still in the | path that we had toiled over on our cuti ward march. At one time the route was lost, when fortunately Hutchison picked ! up a pocket handkerchief which Beech had dropped, and so told us that the way was right. At a time when our physical End mental powers of endurance ware all but exhausted, when our eyes could scarcely distinguish the stones beneath our feat, and my own eyes were playing me all sorts of tricks, and showing me green grass, waving trees, and sparkling pools of water on every side, a loose mule, relieved of hia load, took up the lead. As though he guessed the failure of the faculties of hia human masters, he assumed the responsibility, never going too far ahead ana never lagging bemad. The other mules and horseo instinctively acknowledged his leadership, and followed of their own accord.” At last Portal pushed on to the Italian camp, sending back relief to his comrades, and" all were saved. Of his companions, Captain Beech, like himself, was a strong man, but his servant suffered terribly. ANOTHER TKAKBT CROFT CASS, | Tho south-west of Ireland iu general, I and tiro aristocracy of tho city of Cork in particular, are just now agitated over a card scandal, which threatens to end ia a cause ctUlre of the Tranhy Croft sort. The Gotdon-Cuturning of the present incident is Mr Joseph Pike, of Dunsland (a pretty place between Cork and Queenstown, on tho Lea), who fought tha city against Parnell in ISSS, and is a prominent member of tho County Club. Here ho learned somo time ago vague charges of cheating at cards were being brought against him. All endeavours to sheet them home directly to anybody, however, I failed. He knew his traducers, but could not get legal proof of their libels. Ultimately, however, Mr Pike addressed letters to two officers. Colonel Spotis-

woode and Captain Cooper, accusing them of the authorship of the allegations and demanding their "retraction or subtianualv.m. To tbc'-o ppistiea the gallant officers vouchsafed no reply, and thu club committee inexplicably refusing to interfere, Mr Pike seamed to be without a remedy. Fortunately about this time another local military magnate. Captain Biohard Pigott Beamish afforded Mr Pike tho requisite opportunity for an action and a writ for “libel, slander and conspiracy to defame,” has been issued against him. The case, which excites strong feeling locally, will probably be triad at Dublin, Mr Pike does not seem a popular person. When he stood against Parnell, the “ uncrowned King ” scored at the rate of four votes to his one. TEE HARNESS BELT CASE. When valetudinarians differ, and doctors don’t agree, who shall decide whether there is any virtue in an electropathic belt ? The protracted hearing of the charge of conspiracy to defraud; brought by a combination of disappointed hypochondriacs (possibly aided and abetted by a trio of newspaper proprietor?) against Mr C.. B. Harness and Dr M’Cully, and other parties connected with the Medical Battery Company, Limited., was brought to an end on Thursday afternoon last. Mr Hannay, who, as chief dispenser ofi justice at Marlborough Street, has had this very tedious business in hand for many a weary week, decided yesterday that tho prosecution had failed to substantiate its allegations sufficient to warrant him in senaiag the defendants to trial. That this would be the end of the cars has been clear for some time past, to all but those blind with prejudice. A never-ending parade of- melancholy hypochondriacs in and oat of Court, viH the witness-box, has been the chief feature of . the case. The prosecution produced a string of witnesses —old, young and middle-aged, male and female —who swore that the famous belt possessed no curative properties whatever, denounced Harness and M’Cully as swindlers, and demanded loudly for the return of their many guinea?. The evidence of this lot of “ out-o’-aorts” was strong enough to convince most people that Harness and Company were rogues and thieves, and all that is bad. But, lo! there came later, from north, south, oast and west, an equally big and believable army ■of ." nervously exbauotods” who as positively swore that the famous belt possessed all the -rnggiQ properties claimed’ for it and virtues abundant besides. - These men and women gratefully testified to the beneficial effect the wearing of. the belt had had upon them.. Marvellous cures such afe wc read of in the papers—with “Advt.” at the bottom—were retailed ia the bos on oath, and the defendants’ witnesses, one and all, spoke of Harness and M’Cnlly as heaveu-born medicine-men. The evidence for and against, indeed, was of such a conflicting nature that any intelligent jury would have speedily discharged the defendants, though perhaps wishing that the law of the land would allow them to return that beautifully nebulous verdict, “Not proven.” True, the prosecution produced expert electricians who swore that the belt as supplied by the Zander Institute was useless as an appliance for curing nervous disorders by means of electrical currents, but, as Mr Hannay remarked, the prosecuting combination had failed entirely to prove that Harness and his colleagues had sold the belt knowing it it-to be a useless contrivance. Indeed, seeing that they bad received glowing testimonials from men and women, seemingly of sound mind and good position, as to its effect on their health, they had every right to believe in its great value. Their methods of doing business and extracting exorbitant fees wore open to grave question, but the criminal law of the land keeps at a respectful distance behind the standard of commercial integrity adopted by honest mem Though the. prosecution failed to establish its case it has done one good thing in showing up the methods adopted by Harness and Company ia the financial department of the business.