A BOHEMIAN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1800, 3 June 1891, Page 5

A BOHEMIAN.

After a .brilliant, reckless life of fortythree yeara, says a New York cablegram of March 19, Henry Aveling, actor, took his life in a room of the Sturtevant House last night with cyanide of potassium. Aveling was well known in San Francisco, where he had played several eugagemtnts. He had just finished v contract in the leading role in the "Paul Kauver" Company. He left a note addressed to Mrs Clara Thompson, the leadiDg lady in the "Paul Kauver" Compaay. " Dear Clara, — We could not live aB we wished, and so I go into the great futurity. Find me there, darling, if you can." Aveling's life was full of adventure. At the age of nineteen he was a sailor before the jnast, and at twenty - one a private soldier in the bush, New Zealand. He took an active part in the Maori war, and bore the scars of several wounds, in proof of his courage. He spent nine years in Australia teaching elocution and acting, and he also acted in Bombay and Calcutta. The despondency which led to hiß death was due to financial trouble and his trouble with Marguerite Benison, who, while in San Francisco and for some time after, appeared as his wife. A letter was found among his assets signed by Marguerite Benißon, demanding that he make some provision for her subsistence. She is an actress, with whom he came to this country from England in 1879, and they passed as man and wife. He married Miss- Willets, and they lived together until within the last year, when she began divorce proceedings on the ground of insufficient support and incompatibility of temper.