OBITUARY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15005, 29 May 1912, Page 7

OBITUARY.

A DOWAGER-DUCHESS DEAD. By Telegraph.—Press Association.— London, May 27. The death has occurred of Mary, the Dowager-Duchess of Sutherland. Tho late Dowager-Duchess of Sutherland attained considerable prominence as the central figure in a famous London Court case nearly 20 years ago. In April., 1893, she appeared at Court to answer a charge of seizing a letter, which was in the possession of the administrator of her late husband, and burning it. The Duchess swore that the letter which she destroyed was written by the late Duke (who died in 1892) to herself in 1886, in relation to an unpleasant occurrence between the steward of a yacht and a maid. She believed its presence among the Duke's papers was accidental, and there was, she said, nothing in it in reference to herself that she objected to publish. The judge (Sir Francis H. Jeune) refused to accept an apology from the Duchess, he contending that she had acted with violence and deceit, she having apparently concealed the letter in her hand until she had a dunes' to bhrn it. He was, he said, unable to accept her statement. The Duchess was fined £250; and sentenced to imprisonment for six weeks for contempt of Court. She was sent to Holloway Gaol, where, as a first-class misdemeanant, she was allowed to .furnish her own cell, to have an attendant, and to receive friends.