Topics of the Day.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 26, 26 June 1912, Page 61

Topics of the Day.

By

Our London Correspondent.

considerable length by counsel for the prisoners, who eventually submitted that the Countess was a witness upon whose evidence it would not be safe to convict a man even of petty larceny. He contended that the Countess was not only cognisant of, but instigated the writing of 'the anonymous letters sent by O’Connor to Lady Pink and the Pink family. ,He suggested that she entered Kimpton’s office for the purpose of regaining the letters for as small a price as she could possibly manage, and although she might have become agitated in the course of her bargain it was plain that she left victorious/

The jury, however, accepted enough of the Countess's evidence to prevail upon them to bring in a verdict of guilty after less than ten minutes’ conference, and the judge apparently concurred in their decision as he gave both prisoners twelve months' hard labour.

BLACKMAILING A COUNTESS,

LONDON, May Hi. ~T UDGE LUMLEY SMITH and a jury y-, I were engaged for a couple of days at the Old Bailey this week in trying Frances Page, the proprietor of “ Kimptons Detective Agency” and William Glendinning, his manager, for “feloniously and by restraint of person compelling the Countess Hamil de Manin to accept four bills of exchange for £ 100 each.” It was alleged that the defendants, becoming possessed of certain letters which the Countess wrote in 1907, so terrified her by threatening to have her arrested that she signed the bills. No evidence was called for the defence.

The story of the Countess wlio seems to have travelled extensively in the Antipodes, was to the effect that some years ago she met a Mr. John Hamilton Dobbie on board the ship going front New Zealand to Australia. At that time she knew a gentleman named Daniel O’Connor, “a man of considerable position in Australia.” He and Mr. Dobhie were acquainted with each other. In 1907 Mr. Dobbie and Mr. O’Connor were in London. She knew a Mrs. Williams, stepdaughter of Lady Pink. The witness introduced Mr. Dobbie to Mrs. Williams, and the result of that introduction was that they became engaged to be married the same evening. In May, 1911, a Mr. Freeman Lloyd, who gave the name -of Payne, called on her, send up a card of “Kimpton’s” and said he had come from Mr. Dobbie. He asked if she would give information about Mr. O’Connor and if she would tell what she ■knew about anonymous letters O’Connor had written. Lloyd suggested that she had written some anonymous letters. She said she had written nothing but friendly letters, and that she had signed them all. Lloyd said she should have them back if she signed a letter of apology —that both O’Connor’s letters and her own would be handed to her. She said she did not know how to write a letter of apology. Lloyd said he would dictate one, and he did. On May 10th she went to 71 Strand and saw Glendinning. She said she had come for the letters. He said he could noit give them to her and must see his solicitor first. She left, and afterwards received a telephone message making an appointment for the next day. In the afternoon of May 11th she went to the office of Kimpton’s. The two prisoners and their solicitor, Marshall, stated that the witness had written anonymous letters. They said they would get a warrant for her on the charge of writing anonymous letters, that she would have to pay £lOOO, and would be arrested if she. did not. They said: “You are a rich woman; you have £12,000 a year, and «in well afford to pay.” She replied that she had done nothing, that she had not written the letters, and could not pay £lOOO. Then Page suggested £5OO. Marshall said, “Yes, I will go and consult headquarters.” He left, and returned in a few minutes and said, “Yes, yes; it’s arranged for £500.” Payne said “No, £400.” Marshall said, “Let it be £400.” Witness had not agreed to pay £4OO or anything, and said she would not pay it. Marshall said, “You will have to give bills.” Glendinning wrote out four bills and she signed them, because they said that if she did not a warrant would be obtained and she would be taken into Bow-street. She was in an aiwful state of mind, nearly mad. Glendinning asked her to have some champagne, but she refused, and some tea was brought. She had some and felt very bad after it. She gave some of the milk to her little dog. and it went to sleep for five hours. The tea was given to her before she signed the bills, and after drinking it she felt dazed. Glendinning said she must give him a gold and pearl chain and pendant whieh she was wearing, as they wanted £75 for counsel’s fee. Some letters were produced, and Payne threw them into the grate and lit a match. She saw smoke, but she could not say whether they were destroyed. Glendinning said: “It’s all over.” She asked what would become of O’Connor, and he replied “He will go free.” She then handed them her gold and pearl pendant, being, she declared, so terrified that she did uut know what to do. The Countess was cross examined at

TAILORS ON STRIKE.

The strike of London tailors is no doubt a serious matter to those engaged in it, but to the world at large this latest manifestation of labour “unrest” appeals rather as a mild joke than a serious episode, after the very real troubles caused by the transport workers’ strike and the coal war. Clothes are, of course, a necessary of life, antecedent in civilized regions, even to coal and transport. But the nation is not threatened with an enforced period of the “altogether” fashion, nor even, is the mass with any serious inconvenience.

It may upset a few individuals, but the average Londoner of the upper and middle-classes have usually clothes enough in stock to keep themselves presentable for quite a long time, and for the poorer classes the strike has no terrors, for the tailors on strike have nothing to do with cheap ready-made clothing, and if they had the stocks of such garments in the hands of the wholesale houses are big enough to go round for weeks and weeks to come.

The strike, then, is not an organised attack on the community with the object of starving it into surrender, like those we have been having lately, but an oldfashioned struggle between employers and employed, in which the public are not directly concerned to any particular extent. All they can do is to look on without being in a position to form a clear idea of the rights and wrongs of the case. The points at issue are, of course, money and hours of work; the employed want to get more money for less work, and the employers decline to grant it. Something has been said about the provision of more workshops, but more money’ is the real thing. It is not a very surprising or novel demand. The number of persons who would like to get more money for less work includes so large a proportion of mankind, that the exceptions may be left out of account. Nor is the strike at present “in being” to be considered as a battle between the “bloated capitalist” and the wretched, ground-down “wage-slave.” The sort of tailoring involved in this strike is not a capitalistic industry of the modern type on a big scale. London West-End tailoring is a craft, in which the master-tailors have for the most part been workmen themselves, and many of them still work at the business. They do not individually employ any large number of men, and those whom they do employ are, to a large extent, also employers in their turn. They engage and pay assistants, who are generally women or girls. A dispute between employers and employed therefore resolves itself into a question of details, and are bristling technical complexities whieh utterly befog the sympathetic outsider. For instance, his heart may bleed to think that a highclass workman should only get the

“dockers tanner” per hour, but it rather damps his enthusiasm for the workers’ cause to find that the tiyic “log” by whieh payment is reckoned is a very different thing from an hour by the clock. Thus, 63 log hours are only equal to 35 real hours, and 6d. per log hour really means lid. an hour.

The public cannot judge of those matters, and must leave the combatants to fight it out. They can do so without any compunction. The work-people earn very good wages. Those on strike, so far, are the best paid of their class. The master tailors, for their part, are gen-

erally believed to do pretty well in the West End of London. Their’s, ho vevi r. is a seasonal business, and the stiik has been timed to hit them as hard a possible, for it is interfering with the r early summer trade, which is th? best c all. It is now that the American visitor-. come over in their shoals and load them selves with London tailorings, and now that men generally renew their ward robes. The employed will also suffer with the employer, for this is their fat season for earnings. The quarrel is not likely, however, to be of long duration, for the unions at present involved are very weak financially. On the occasion of the list, strike in 1891, the men won. This time it looks as if the masters, who are showing a firm front, are more likely to succeed.

VISION AS EVIDENCE.

Tn Dumfries Sheriff Court this week an application was made by the trustees of the late Robert Turnbull Scott, ship and insurance broker, of Palmerston Buildings, Bishopsgate, London. who lived at Highgate, to presume the death of his father, Archibald Scott, who went to Australia in 1851 at the time of a gold “rush,” and was lost sight of. The object of the action was to complete the titles of house property in Langholm, Dumfriesshire, to which the missing mail would have been heir. Mrs. Jane Scott (or- Debenham), of Great Warley, Essex, widow of Dr. Debenham, said the missing man. Archibald Scott, was her father. He was a member of a Langholm family, was born about 1821, and was some time clerk in the York City and County Bank of Whitby. He was married to Anne Elizabeth Turnbull about 1843, and had two eh 1dren, the witness and her brother Robert. Iter father went to Australia in 1851, at the time of the gold “lever." and ail efforts to trace him had failed.

His cider sister, Sybella. many years .vgo told the witness that she was convinced by a vision that her brother Archibald was dead. Her aunt Sybella informed the witness of certain family traditions, and told tier that while she was taking a walk with her father one summer evening, she saw her brother Archibald walking along the path towards them, dressed in the check suit which he used to wear. Site was a lit,He behind her father, and in passing the figure she did not speak, but she turned round to look and make sure. The figure also turned in passing, and then disappeared. She asked her father if he had seen anything, but he said “No," and she was certain her brother Archibald had died at that very hour she had seen the vision.

The Court allowed Archibald Scott's death to be presumed and was hardly taking any risks in so doing, seeing that he disappeared just over 60 years ago, and was then in his 31 st year or thereabouts.