EXTRAORDINARY SCENE AT A WEDDING.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1502, 24 October 1885, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY SCENE AT A WEDDING.

Truth states t >»t. a cuious scene occurred lately at St George's, Hailover Square, London. A couple were about to be united in the bonds of holy matrimony, but as the lady had be< n defendant in a divorce suit the rector was jopposed to the marriage, entertaining conscientious scrnplcs on the subject. The bridegroom had therefore secured the < ffioos of another clergyman, the breadth of whose ideas on the marriage question are well known. lie was present, and all promised to go smoothly when obstacles suddenly presented themselves owing to the fact that permission had neither been nor obtained from the Hector of the Chu r ch. When the gentleman who desired to officiate uride his appearance, he was refused the loan of a surplice, but some oue overcame that difficulty by rushing out and buying one. But the troubles did not end here, for two stalwart curates resolutely birred the passage of the reverend geutleraan, preventing his entering the church where the bride was anxiously awaitiug her swain. Eventually the contest was abandoned, and the wedding party retired from the scene of action, the unwedded bride being taken away in a fainting condition,

FROM WEALTH AND FAME TO POVERTY. By passing; through a narrow dirty passage at No. 211 Greene street, one comes upon a row of tenement bouses some four in number, occupied principally by miserable French and Italian families. The houses are squalid beyond measure and so are the unfortunate people that inhabit them. A lively interchange of courtesies is frequently kept with the occupants of th<a rear rooms in the Greene-street houses. Not the slightest touch of harmony can be found *ntaose interesting; conversations, which are carried on in bad English, mongrel French and vile Italian, with the barking of dogs aud the screaming of half-starved children breaking the chorus. Frequent assaults have bean made on the foundation of the staircases for firewood, the front door 3 had long since disappeared "to bile the kittle in th' mornin','' as an old Irish woman phrased it. The melancholy of these surroundings is accentuated by the fact that on the ground floor of one of the dwellings a once famous dancer lies paralyzed and starving. She is Ermina Venteroli, whose performances less than a dozen years ago filled New York piay-goers with delight. At the Union Square Theatre, the Comedy Theatre and Niblo's Garden, she was accustomed to receive nightly the enthusiastic applause of thousands. Costly souvenirs were showered upon her from gay admirers, who vied with each other in their efforts to command attention.

lii all the great cities of the Union hep success was no less marked, and more than once daring her tours did she refuse offers of marriage from men who were known to be rich. Her success in the California Theatre at Sau Francisco was s) striking that the manager advanced her pay to S2OO for each night's performan 'e. At a performance in a Phi'aitlp'iia theatre she was suddenly stricken down with paralysis while on tie sage. Since that time her story has be m as melancholy as any presented in the pag>B of fiction. In her prese nt filthy abode th'-re lives an old mo he- who was the faithful companion of her daughter during the days of her triumph, as she now is when all that is worth living for is gone—health, beauty aud means. The old lady has two grandchildren iu the house, the orphans of her son. One of them, a boy of fifteen, who works iu a grocery store, has been sick for weeks ; the other, a young girl, was engaged when a Tribune reporter called yesterday, iu scraping the boues of smie stale meat and peeling some potatoes with her finger nails. She is a handsome c i d with dark eyes, an intelligent fac >, but quite starved looking.

The dancer herself pat in a broken chair lookiug into vacancy. Her mouth and arms a'e paralyzed, and though mistress of ha f a dozen languages she is unable to utter a word; her utterance is un'y a confused babble. In the days of her prime, she was handsome, with fbwin:, raven locks, deep and lustrous eyes, that classic face which grows to perfection ouly beneath Italian skiep. She is only thirty-four years old, yet all her upper teeth are goue, through the effects of medicine. In the height of her success she was regarded as handsome and was popularly known as " The Black Rook." She was born in Bologna and educated in Paris. There, as in the other principal cities of Europe, her successes were as marked as .in Jthxs couutry. The old mother said in broken French : " I get bits of bread and stale fish from friends, but I can't beg, for the police would arrest me." Here the old lady, who is seventy yeirs old, began to cry, and Ermina seeiDg her, also burst into a flood of tears.—X. Y. Tribune.