ECHO OF GREAT SCANDAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18565, 24 November 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

ECHO OF GREAT SCANDAL.

• • ' >. ■ ' ;' " ■ \ ' PANAMA CANAL FRAUDS. FAMILY'S TRAGIC LIFE. Paris telegrams announce the death of Comte Charles de Lesseps, son of Vicomte Ferdinand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal. He was eighty-two *?ears old. - ■ ■ ' : - v He died from heart failure a few hours after making a speech at a Suez Canal directors' meeting. fj ■ , -. T Charles de Lesseps, an engineer, like his famous father, lived for many years a life of unalloyed tragedy. ''-}' The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and /f the great success jjf enterprise inspired America with-theidea of cutting a canal ' across . the ' isthmus of Panama. The enterprise was, put in the hands of Ferdinand de Lesseps and his son in 1881, hut failed partly owing to the deadly climate and partly owing to corruption, for which the de Lesseps ; were in no way responsible. i, . -; ; In 1892 both men were prosecuted on various charges of fraud, ;and were sen-' tenced to five years' imprisonment. Charles was released after serving seven months of his sentence, and Ferdinand, too ill to be taken to prison, died in 1894 of a broken heart. Charles de Lesseps went into retirement, and even after it was proved that, neither he nor his father had any part in the Panama Canal frauds, he rarely appeared in society. '~?2~ \