DEATH OF A NOTORIOUS COUNTESS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7189, 6 January 1902, Page 4

DEATH OF A NOTORIOUS COUNTESS.

Tho Countess of Stradbroke, whose death recently occurred in London, was the peeress who caused the arrest of lidniund lates, the Anglo-American 30urnalisfc who was the proprietor and editor of the London World. It was on her account that he was convicted of criminal libel and sentenced to a year's imprisonment. Yates could have escaped the penalty by giving the name of the writer of tho libellous paragraph which appeared in his paper during his absence, and which he never saw until it appeared in print. The Countess did not, however, escape all punishment, for in some way or other Queen Victoria became possessed of the knowledge that it was sho who had written the libellous paragraph, acd, in consequence, the Countess received an intimation from tho Lord Chamberlain to the effect that hor name had been struck off tho list of peeresses entitled to invitation to Court, and that she would not bo allowed to present herself from that time at any Court function or any affair whero royalty was present. The libel in question wus a singularly gross one. It was .lo the effect that Lord Lonsdale, then us now, a married man, had tloped from the hunting field with an unmarried girl, Lady Grace Fane, now Countess of Londesborough. It was a paragraph for which there was not a shadow "of foundation, and which originated in tho altogether too lively imagination of tho Countess,