LONDON.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 4258, 17 July 1895, Page 6

LONDON.

[From thk Evening Star's Correspondent

London, May 24.

" SIX ROGER'S " LAST.

The confession of that obese impostor, the Claimant, that he is indeed Arthur Or ton makes excellent newspaper "copy," but from any other point of view is perfectly valueless. The man takes affidavits as cheerfully and indifferently as average individuals take a glass of sherry. He would swear he was the Pope to-morrow if there seemed anything to be gained by that act and deed, and that he will retract his present story the moment it seems profitable to do so I can't doubt. In the past few years this ex-convict has posed as "Sir Roger," as Sir Roger's bastard brother, as Lady Tichborne's natural son, and finally as Orton. He wove beautiful stories to account for each of these assumptions, announcing every time that he had at last made up his mind to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." The worthy fellow's latest spasm of veracity seems to have been stimulated by proposals from the enterprising editor of a penny weekly, who may be Bafely left to fill up any awkward nooks and crannies in the narrative. The opening chapter reads like very ancient history — in fact, I should say the Claimant (now, by the way, no longer the Claimant) has been refreshing his memory with Sir John Coleridge's statement anent Arthur Orton's conversion into Thomas Castro.

The temporary spasm of interest which this burlesque confession of a truth long proved by law has created reminds us of the rush there was to get a glimpse of Sir Roger during the last days of the trial. The crush of barristers, etc., was then so great in Westminster Hall that a strong barrier had to be put up, and behind it a dense crowd rocked and swayed, fighting for front rows, and hoarsely cheering the fat impostor as he waddled to and from his brougham. The courts at Westminster are now pulled down, but anyone who examines the stone floor just where the old entrance used to be can Bee holes drilled into the flags to support the barriers. In another thirty years they may all be forgotten, and centuries hence, if the old building should still stand, antiquarians may be puzzled to account for them. It is strange that this Wapping butcher should have left his indelible mark in the banqueting hall of William Rufus. •

THE " MASHING OF MAJOBIBANKS."

The most sensational theatrical breach of promise case which a virtuous public have been privileged to enjoy since Miss Fortesque mulcted Lord Garmoyle (as he was then) of £10,000 damages will be heard — unless a compromise is arrived at — very shortly. The plaintiff is Miss "Birdie" Sutherland (in common life Annie Watkins), one of the band of sweet girl choristers, who are " things of beauty and joys for ever," on the Gaiety stage. Birdie's charms some time ago " mashed " the susceptible heart of the Hon. Dudley Majoribanks, son of the late Liberal whip and present Lord Tweedmouth. The lad was not then of age, but a thoroughly upright, honorable young fellow. The idea of suggesting a Gaiety marriage, which consists chiefly of a suburban villa and a private brougham, to his Birdie did not occur to him. He proposed in due form, and in order that there should be no mistake about it Miss Sutherland's friends slipped notices of the engagement into the "society" journals. Lord Tweedmouth promptly contradicted the announcement, and took his love- sick offspring in hand. There are two ways of operating on an unsuitable amour. One is to oppose it, which increases the victims' passion, and makes them obstinate. The other is to render them conscious of their own folly by seemingly giving way. The latter was the mode Lord Cairns adopted with Lord Garmoyle and Miss Fortescue. The young lady went stop to with her fianc£s family in Scotland. They were very grim, very serious, very religious people. Lady Cairns bored Miss Fortescue (a bright, clever girl) to extinction, and out of pure mischief the actress revelled in shocking the old Scotchwoman. Garmoyle was devoted to his mother, and from that moment he was disenchanted. So, too, had he but known it, was Miss Fortescue. He jilted her, but had he delayed a week longer she would have thrown him over. It was Mr W. S. Gilbert insisted on Miss Fortescue suing Garmoyle for breach of promise. He pointed out her character would suffer if she didn't, and he was unquestionably right. The mode Lord Tweedmouth adopted to bring the Hon. Dudley Majoribanks to reason has not transpired, but apparently it was entirely successful. Miss " Birdie " institutes proceedings for breach on the same high grounds as Miss Fortescue did, and let us hope she may achieve an equally conspicuous advertisement. Damages are claimed, but the amount is left to the jury.

JABEZ BALFOUK.

Jabez Balfour has been committed to take his trial at the June sessions of the Central Criminal Court, when it seems probable he may give the Crown a good deal of trouble to secure a conviction. His acute comprehension of the enormously involved details of the Liberator business was apparent during the police proceedings at Bow street, and the manner in which he prompted his ferret-like looking counsel (Mr John O'Connor, M.P.), whom he addressed as "John," excited the lawyers' admiration. He was ready, and yet full of tact. The ' Realm ' notes that one tesult of the Balfour scandals will probably be the extinction of the name of "Jabez," which till recently was enormously popular amongst Nonconformists in the north of England. Not one infant is so christened now for twenty who got the name before.

Another reporter, commenting on Balfour's coolness and urbanity in the dock, as well as ou the shrewdness with which he manages to score every possible point, gives an instance of the former. The other day a gentleman seated near the dock reading an evening paper was startled to find a fat hand on his shoulder. "Excuse me, my dear sir," blandly whispered the prisoner, " but how many has Grace made ? It must be a most interesting match. " The reader sought out the intelligence and replied, and when Jabez heard that the champion had just completed his hundredth century he murmured softly "Good old W.G."

:U)R» CONNEMARA AGAIN*.

Society is wondering whether it was through a blunder Lord Connemara was permitted to accompany his new wife to Court last week and to make his bow in person. Such an incident as a divorced man presenting himself at one of these functions has never before been known, and Lord Connemara's case, you will remember, was a particularly bad one. Not content with trying to bounce his wife out of her resolve to expose him, he basely accused her of misdemeanor with her medical man, Dr Briggs, and did his utmost to ruin that luckless officer. The stcry of how the latter risked his career to face the charge (which was withdrawn in court), and suffered, in consequence, at the hands of the military authorities, has been told again and again in the House of Commons. Lord Connemara possesses a most fascinating personality, and has always been a great favorite with the Royal family, more especially the Duke of Cambridge. The latter, there can, I fear, be small doubt, used his influence to pull his friend out of the Divorce Court, and was furious with Briggs for baulking him. I

cannot, however, credit that Her Majesty means to overlook Lord Connemara's offence against society, and we shall doubtless hear in a few days the presentation has been cancelled.

"this red duke."

The first time I ever saw the late Duke of Hamilton was in the year 1868, when, as a lad of fifteen, I was reading with a tutor in Scotland, and we spent the summer at Lamlash, on the Isle of Arran, not many miles from His Grace's picturesquely situated Castle of Brodick. The Island of Arran belonged in toto to the Duke, and his photographs were in every shop window. We saw him, too, when with a rollicking party of kindred spirits, including the Duke of Newcastle and Mr Chaplin, he came to Brodick for the grouse shooting. Thepremier peer of Scotland was then just twenty- three, and one of the handsomest men of his time, a veritable young Apollo. To my boyish imagination he seemed the ideal reckless hero of romance, capable of any mad escapade or deed of daring. The island teemed with stories of his extravagance, his losses on the turf, and his worship of a divinity of the footlights. Two or three more such years as had followed his coming of age and the head of the Douglases would, without doubt, be "stone broke." That was the opinion of the solemn Calvinisfc islanders, who shook their heads over the prodigal and predicted his eternal damnation, though they were devoted to him, and would have one and all followed him to the gates of hell had he but lifted up his little finger. As a matter of fact, the Duke of Hamilton did (one learnt years afterwards) sow, perhaps, the finest crop of wild oats of the renowned Hastings era. He entered the turf arena in 1866, when the plunging marquis was at his zenith, and his achievements in the betting ring soon rivalled those of that nobleman. He had not, however, the gifts of Lord Hastings, who — as I have often told you — was one of the best judges of a handicap ever known, and took more out of the ring than the ring ever took out of him. Cards and dice were really his ruin. But the Duke of Hamilton had in his mlat days no understanding of the turf, and lost pots of money at every meeting he attended. One of his early efforts at wagering Mas a bet of £180,000 to £6,000, which in a fit of temper he laid Captain Machell against Hermit for the Derby. As the horse then stood at about 15 to 1 for the race in question, there did not seem any valid reason why His Grace should tender double the odds against him. Mutual friends consequently intervened, and the bet was scratched. Later, after Hermit went to pieces and got knocked out, the Duke loudly lamented the £6,000, " which " — he remarked on comparing day — " would have squared my book nicely." Even as things were, his prejudice against Hermit cost him dear, just as Sir John Astley's did. 'Twas said, indeed, after the race the two palest men on the course were " The Mate " and the " Red Duke." Buth men had all but lost fortunes over it, just as Lord Hastings actually lost one. The best horse the Duke of Hamilton ever owned was Wild Oats, who with good luck would have swept the board in 1869. He was backed for the Derby as though defeat were out of the question. John Corlett recalls his sensational career as follows : —

Wild Oats was bred by Lord Dorchester, and was one of the most highly-tried two-year-olds Matthew Dawson ever had. Stephenson made a huge book for him on the Derby, and the late Duke of Newcastle (who was associated with His Grace) played the high toby game of laying against everything else, and backing him with the money. To the consternation of all concerned, the debut of the horse " in the Middle Park Plate was most inglorious. Mat Dawson, it was even said, went home and went to bed, where the two dukes found him. He insisted that no mistake had been made, and that if he could not beat Leonie at I2lb he would not train another horse. The Duke of Newcastle poohpoohed this, as Leonie was a three-year-old who had just carried Bst 71b into second place foi the Great Eastern Handicap, which was then a great race. The horse was taken out the following morning by the Duke of Newcastle, and when Wild Oats did all that was asked of him and won the Duke rode straight oft to Heath House to apologise to Mat Dawson for any doubts than he might have expressed. There was, indeed, no mistake, as was quickly seen when in the Prendergast Wild Oats beat Morna, who had won the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster, lowering the colors of Great Belladrum by half a score lengths. In bis next essay he ran a dead heat with Pero Gomez, after the longest and most punishing contest we ever saw between two two-year-olds, one seeming to carry the other at the finish. In the spring of the following year, when the Duke of Hamilton landed from a yachting cruise at Marseilles on his way to Newmarket to see the Two Thousand run for, he received a telegram from the Duke of Newcastle saying that the horse's leg had given way. Wild Oats never ran again. One fine morning about this time the Duke discovered that he was ruined. . He had spent every farthing that he could raise or mortgage, and sold himself body and soul to the notorious Pad wick. It was then the late Sir J. Mackenzie came to the rescue with the great discovery which set the Duke ou his legs again. He found a fatal flaw in the entail of the Hamilton properties, so that instead of being a tenant for life merely the Duke became absolute owner. In short, he was again a very wealthy man. People expected His Grace would spend the second fortune like the first, but he did nothing of the sort. The famous Hamilton House collection of pictures were dispersed to satisfy Padwick's claims, and then His Grace, as the French say, ranged himself and settled down to decent conventionality.

The Duke always kept a fair string of horses in training, but he left off betting, and in the eighties, when he won the One Thousand and Oaks with Miss J ummy and the Leger with Ossian, he landed but moderate stakes. I last saw the premier peer of Scotland at Newmarket a year or two ago. He had grown burly and gouty, the golden curls of three-and-twenty had turned a dull red, and the pink-and-white complexion grown a weather-tanned brown. But the merry blue eyes, the cheery laugh, and the buoyant manner were noticeable as of old.

John Corlett, referring to the Hamilton House sale, which raised a great cackle at the time, says : —

There was a debt of half a million on the estate when the Duke came into it, and which had been increased to nearly a million, and there was nearly a million's worth of treasures locked up at Hamilton Palace that no one ever saw. Why, therefore, pay about £30,000 per annum for keeping things from which little pleasure was derived ? To the horror of the exquisites, the sale took place. People went mad in buying, and the estate was freed from debt. Gradually things that had been sold came back into the market, and he bought them, in many cases, for less than half of what they had fetched at the sale. It is well known that he might have bad a million sterling for the Island of Arran had he cared to see the grand beauty of that island destroyed by builders. For some time past there has not been a more popular name in the peerage than his. He had not a selfish thought in him, and he was worthy of his high position as chief of the House of Douglas and premier peer of Scotland. The new Duke of Hamilton (Mr A. Douglas-Hamilton) is a son of a younger son of the eleventh duke, and quite unknown.

ASSASSINATION OF THE ABBE DE BROGLIE.

The assassination of the Due de Broglie's brother, the Abbe de Broglie, on Saturday, by an hysterical woman named Mdlle. Amelot, has neither political nor amatory significance. The deceased was a member of one of the most illustrious families in France. He had a right to call himself Prince, and up to 1869, when he left the navy to take holy orders, was so known. Quite apart from his birth, he was held to be one of the most eminent members of the

French clergy, and was known for workß of charity. He was a fine-looking man of sixty-one, with a manly and yet gentle countenance.

According to Mrs Crawford's account of the catastrophe, the Abbe de Broglie was in the habit of saying mass every morning at the Carmelite chapel belonging to the Catholic Institute. On Friday a woman, Mademoiselle Amelot, addressed him as he was at the altar. He had spread about, she said, villainous tales about her. She insisted upon a written apology. Her screaming tones attracted a beadle, who wa3 proceeding to turn her out. The priest, wishing to avoid a scene in church, told the beadletoforbear. He then requested the woman to withdraw, promising that he would call upon her the following day. This woman had always been regarded as eccentric, and it was the opinion of those who knew her that she had "a screw loose." Mdlle. Amelot had a small annuity of fifty or sixty pounds a year. She made a little money by sewing for convents, and received alms from the charitable Abbe. On Saturday morning the priest, keeping his promise, called on Mdlle. Amelot. An hour later she appeared at the police station in the Rue Abbe Gregoire and handed a visiting card to the clerk, on which was written a request that the Commissary might call immediately at 5 Rue Notre Dame des Champs. She then went to a priest and told him of her crime. The priest sought the nephew of the deceased, and also Mgr. d'Hulst, and the party went to the apartments of the woman, where they found the body of the Abbe de Broglie, lying on his back in the corridor, in a pool of blood. The murderess showed absolutely no emotion, and told how she had packed a towel under the door to atop the blood. When the police arrived her statement was taken down. She said that when the Abbu arrived she charged him once more with having ruined her by his calumnies, and asked him to sign a retractation. The Abbe refused, and remarked that she was mad. She then took her revolver. The Abbo rushed upon her and endeavored to wrest it from her, and the revolver went off of itself. "In fact," she continued, " the Abbe killed himself. I wanted to take revenge for the calumnious reports that were abroad concerning me by killing a priest or a nun, but I did not wish to take the life of the Abbe." She had, however, previously given a different account, stating that after she fired the first bullet, which shattered thehand of the Abbu, he fled into the ante-room and tried to get out, but that she kept firing from behind. The first bullet broke the priest's hand, the second broke his cheek bone, the third went into his clothes, and the last entered the nape of the neck, probably killing him on the spot.