SOME FAMOUS SECRET MARRIAGES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12429, 19 February 1901, Page 2

SOME FAMOUS SECRET MARRIAGES.

(London Express ,) That the days of romance are not yet dead is proved conclusively by the latest Anglo-American alliance, which, has fluttered the dovecots of London and New York society. Gretna Green is gone, but young hearts still beat with the fervour of a century ago, even in this prosaic and . utilitarian age. . - Many middle-aged people will remember the sensational runaway match which was more than a nine days’ wonder in 1864. On August 16 of that year Lady Florence Paget was secretly married to the. Marquis 1 of Hastings. - r ■ The ceremony took place at St George’s,' Hanover Square, in the presence of half a dozen intimate friends of both parties. The: Marquis was twenty-two-years of age at' that time, and his’bride a little younger.; What added more than a spice of interest and excitement to the elopement was the ■ fact that Lady Florence was at the time 1 supposed to be engaged to a wealthy landowner and a sportsman, who" subsequently became a.Cabinet Minister. The wild turf speculation of the ill-fated young Marquis, his enormous losses, and his premature death four years after his marriage, helped to make his brief career as romantic as anythingconceived by a professed writer of fiction.

The Yelverton case in 1861 excited, tremendous interest. Nominally, it was an action brought by a hotel-keeper to re-' - cover a stun of something like £250 for board and lodging supplied to the Hon Mrs Yelverton, -wife of Major the Hon William C. Yelverton, the heir of Lord ’Avonmore. Yelverton alleged that the lady was not his wife; and a secret marriage in Scotland had to be proved. The trial, which was held in the Court of Common Pleas, Dublin, lasted no less than eleven •days, and the excitement grew and grew till it reached a pitch unparalleled. There was a breathless silence as the jury’s foreman gravely announced that the twelve good men and true found that Mrs Yelverton was the legal ‘ wife of the uncluvalrous major, whose evidence had been received during the trial with unmistakable marks of disapproval from the public. When the verdict was delivered a thundering cheer arose, which was taken up by the packed crowd outside the Court. Mrs Yelverton, whose character had thus been triumphantly vindicated by a jury of her fellow-countrymen, was drawn in triumph to her hotel by the excited people, the horses having been removed from her carriage for the purpose. __ , -

The lady subsequently -addressedthe crowd from a balcony. Then- the -cheers were renewed—cheers for Mrs.. Yelverton, for the Chief Justice, for the defending -counsel, and for the jury thundered ‘ out, and it was a considerable time, before the excited partisans of Mrs Yelverton dispersed. ■ .