CIGARETTE PAPERS.

Southland Times, Issue 22013, 12 May 1933, Page 8

CIGARETTE PAPERS.

THE MURDERED PREMIER. Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister of Great Britain, was shot dead in the Commons lobby on May 11, 1812, by a broker named Bellingham, who, having been reduced to bankruptcy through trading in Russia, had sought redress from the Government, and been refused. All the circumstances of this, the only assassination of a Premier in English history, were more than ordinarily tragic. Perceval himself—of no great account as a statesman, “superficial in knowledge and intolerant in notions,” as somebody has written —was the beloved father of no fewer than twelve children. Their future was secured, as far as money could do it, by Parliament. All Saints’ Church, Ealing, by the way, is Perceval's memorial; built nearly a century after his death. Bellingham, a man of complete integrity, maddened by a sense of grievance —yet the jury rightly found him sane —had a 20-year-old wife and baby in St. Petersburg, waiting to hear his wrongs had been righted. Instead, they learned he had been hanged. —CRITICUS.