The Great Pearl Case

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6754, 8 February 1892, Page 2

The Great Pearl Case

One of the most-talked of persons in B ngland just now, wo may safely guess, is Mrs Osborne, (he criminal heroine of “ The great pearl case.” The story of this crime has been partly bat not completely told in oar columns recently. Mrs Osborne—then Miss Elliott—a young 'woman of 25 or 26, “ in society,” visited a cousin of hers, a Mrs Hargreaves, for a week or so. After she had gone Mrs Hargreaves missed some pearl ornaments, valued at £6O. Miss Elliott was suspected of stealing them, and the Hargreaves made inquiries for the purpose of sheeting (he charge home to her, net for the purpose of prosecuting - they wou’d not prosecute one of the family—but to satisfy themselves, and probably to recover from her friends the trinkets. Miss Elliott was interviewed and treated the charge with indignation and contempt. It was discover, d for the Hargreaves that the pearls were sold to Spinks, London jewellers, on a certain day, by a young lady and paid for by cheque, and that the cheque was cashed for gold, 650 sovereigns, by a young lany, and Mr Spinks and some of his assistants, and a bank oletk, in a not very certain way identified Miss Elliott as the person who sold the pearls and cashed the cheque. This identification was not positive, however, and Miss Ethel EViott still faced as boldly as ever, as a very model of injured innocence She was engaged to be married at this time to a Captain Osborne, of the Carabineers,and he thoroughly believing in her innocence insisted on going on with the marriage, in spite of the charge hanging over bis fiancee. The Hargreaves did not see why they should keep their tongues still, they were so sure of Miss Elliott's guilt, and to shut them up, and also to clear his wife’s character, after their marriage Captain Osborne brought a suit for slander against Major and Mrs Hargreaves, for saying that Mi-a Elliott stole the pearls The trial took place in London, lasted several days, the biggest guns among counsel were engaged on each side, and the greatest interest was taken in the case. Up to the fourth day the evidence supporting the alleged slander was so weak, the identification of Mrs Osborne with the lady who sold the jewels and changed the cheque sa doubtful, that no one could say, if the case had boon closed there, how the jury would have decided it. On the fourth day, however, aid came for the defendants from an unexpected quarter. A letter was passed up to the Judge, who passed it to the counsel on both sides, and the case was at once adjourned for (he day in order to enable the information given in that letter to be followed up. It was from a firm of tailors who, on reading of the trial in the papers, recollected that on the date the “ young lady ” changed Spinks' cheque for 550 sovereigns, a young lady asked them to give her notes' for 550 soverigns. They had not the notes by them, and they sent her to a neighbouring bank, whore she was accommodated. The unusual nature of the request, in view of the largeness of the sum, seemed necessarily to connect their visiter with the seller of the pearls, and the tailors recommended the

court to try ot,d trace some of the notes. During the day the bank was ca'led upon, and it was ascertained that a young lady, who got a note from the tailors, received seven £SO notes in the bundle ehe w«s given, the num> hers, as usual, being noted. Inquiry for these notes soon elicited that one of them had been paid by Miss Elliott the same day it was received, to a firm to which she was indebted, and on the back of that note she wrote her name ! Of course these irquirks and results were unknown to the public, and when the trial was resumed next day the public were in a fever of curiosity to learn what that letter to the Judge had disclosed, and what had come of it. The crowd who attended the court saw there was something important to come out, Mrs Osborne was absent, and her counsel Sir Charles Russell, looked glum. The note bearing Miss Elliott’s endorsement completely damned her case, her counsel had to give it up and asked for a verdict for defendants. As for Mrs Osborne, she bolted to the continent. Cablegrams received the last day or two state that her husband has brought her back to stand her trial for “ fake pretences," From this we must infer that the Hargreaves (as they said all along) refuse to prosecute her fur the theft, but that Spinks has had no such family feeling for her, and the charge is for obtaining money from him by ful ely representing the pearls as her own. In some remarks on the case the Daily Chronicle says: Unfortunately the evil she has done, the scandal she has brought to honourable men and women connected with her, the sorrow with which she has clouded the life of her chivalrous young lover, who took her word against that of the world, and insisted on marrying her when the first hint of her guilt was given, cannot vanish wi'h her. It will fill many lives with bitter memories, and sully many honourable names. For Miss Elliot seems to have been, like Hedda Gablor, quite an artist in dissimulation, and ehe therefore committed to her cause many who will now rue the day they were every associated with her . . . Ethel Elliot is no ordinary criminal. She is one of those creatures, beautiful but predatory, whom Ibsen would love to depict —a creature utterly devoid of conscience and moral sense, and utterly unconcerned about the price she makes others pay for ministering to her pleasure, her will, or her appetites. She is the fair flower that grows into poisonous beauty in the rank soil of our vaunted competitive civilisation. Wealth, honour, pleasure, and what the world calls “ happiness,” frequently come to men and women who act consistently on her lines. Failure may occur, because there has been blundering that has led to a collision with the criminal law. This is the primary lesson which the course of Miss Ethel Elliot's little world, and the conduct of the successful men and women in it enforce on the young people who enter it. When you ride they tell you then you must ride to win, no matter whom you foul or ride over, or what hearts you break, or what ever widening circles of sorrow radiate from you. So long as you are not found out the game goes merrily, and, there is no luxury or social distinction or pleasant sensuality unattainable if you only dispense with the luxury of a conscience and cultivate the gifts of lying and dissimulation to the highest qonceivoble pbints of efficiency. There is no difference whatever between Ethel Elliott and hundreds of young men and women in her social position, except this—that she had more nerve and will-power and craft, and, still more important, the courage of the gambler, who never feels the fall savour of life till he plays for the highest stakes without having anything to pay if he loses. . . . . Despite her deliberation end malicious lying, the question will probably be raised as to whether Miss Elliott was or was not sane. The kleptomaniac, however, does not usually sell what is stolen, or get up such an odiously cruel defence as Miss Elliott invented. Of course, there is a sense in which all fashionable young women who are bad are mad. Then the best way to cure them of being mad is to punish them for being bad, cot to waste sympathy on them for being mad. That at least is bow a case of this kind strikes observers of human nature who have not let serse bo swamped by sentimentality. Miss Elliott’s perfectly reckless love of ease, her complete disregard of honour or moral responsibility is illustrated by her rapid resolve to steal her cousin’s jewels, and for what.reason ? Why, merely to pay her own outstanding bills at Maple’s shop and elsewhere rather than face a remonstrance about her extravagance from her guardians or relations, and, probably, like JLady Russell, a quarrel with her husband after marriage. But this love of ease and pleasure, this shrinking from what is called a “ scene ” when one has to duolose one’s debts or one’s follies, is to soma extent the rule of young people in certain circles of modern society.