A CURIOUS CAREER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1050, 2 June 1882, Page 4

A CURIOUS CAREER.

Writing before the execution of Dr Lamson, the Wimbledon poisoner, a correspondent who was in Koumaria during the Rnsso-Turkish war the fol owing to the London Telegraph• While fully acquiescing in the jus ice of the verdict that has doomed George Lamson to an ignominious death, I must confess myselt unable to understand how so amiable, ■gifted, and accomplished a being as this unhappy man appeared to he could possibly have committed a crime that is, as it were, the negation of his whole past! fe’s history, i.amsou’s manhood has been sp»nb i t the re i -f of human suffering. By his devotion to the noblest of professions, by the skill, courage, and self-abnega’ion he lias displayed upon inninn ruble Decisions in ministering to the sick and wounded during more than one of the great wars that have convulsed Europe within the last twelve years, he has earned renown and distinction. His services to humanity had been acknowledged by conferments of knight ; y orders and military medals bestow d upon him at different times by the European Sta es, whose soldiers he had tended at the risk of his lif , and without other pecuniary reward than the ordinary payaudfield al owance.Sof an asis-tant-surgeon. I was mysef a witness of the good work he did in Rouiuania during the Autumn in 1877, when he placed his time and talents unreserved ly at the disposal ofQmen, them Princess, El zabeth. It was at that time I had made his perstnal acquaints ce, for, although I had fiequently heard of him as an able and gallant volu teer surgeon in Servia during the previous year’s campaign, we had never chanc d to meet until my lamented friend Mr M'Gahan, inti educed Mr Lamson to me in Bucharest, to the best of my remembrance a few clays before the .Roumanian army crossed the Danube. At our very first meeting Lamson impressed me favorably, (disappearance and manners were alike eminently prepossessing. Further acquaintance with him, which soon assumed a character of intimacy, continued my first impressions. J found him a well-bred and highly ed cated man, full of excellent differences, sweet tempered, and cheerful, and a decided acquisition to the foreig colony attracted to Bucharest by the stirring events of that sensational epoch, as well as to l ounia-ni-m s ciety, in which he was tece-ved with open arms, as some -mn 1 acknowledgment of his assiduous and disinterested service in the hoSj itals and ambulances, hastily improvised in and near Bucharest as soon as die dread tidings of the Grivitza assault reached that capital. “An excellent French scholar, possessing more than an elementary knowledge of one or two other Conti ueotal languages, Lamson was able to hold his own in the salons of some of the fir leaders of Bucharest society, as well as to converse freely with his professional confreres native to the soil. I may with truth say of him that her won golden opinions Irom all mai no. of men. Davilla, the Inspector Gene ral of Hospitals, and Marcovich, the fashionable doctor of the Ronminian grand monde, alike held him in great esteem, and courted his society He was a frequent guest at the British Agency, and °er Highness the Princess honored him by her particular notice. At one time and another I saw a great deal of him, and came, as [ thought then, and still think, to know him well. During a brief illness, due to over fatigue and the de- ' pressing effect of a fierce Roumanian summer, I was his debtor for many judicious and tender kindnesses Nothing seemed to give him so ranch pleasure as o eof any use to hisfriends and acquaintances. His fund of anecdote was inexhaustible , but although a spirited and willing raennrour, he invariably observed a modest reserve with regard to his own achievements in past campaigns—achievements which, as I learned from other sources, had upon many occasions redouned to his honor.

“It can scarcely be wondered at that the mere attribution of a heinom ai d dastaidly crime to so exceptionally gifted and socially popular a man should have been the cause of profound pevp'exity, as well as of deep sorrow, to his many friends and acquaintances indifferent irartsr.f Europe Only He nth r dry I receiv'd a letter from a Bonmanian gen lemau of illustrious I irth and exalted station, at whose house Lamson had been a freClient, and honored guest, expressing the writer’s horror and indignation that, his friend should have been even suspected of so atrocious a deed as the murder of Percy Malcolm John, and concluding with the following sente ce:—‘ Kind, good Lamson is the last man in the world whom I could conceive capable of a b ise and cruel action ’ I know many honorable and intelligent men whose opinion of the doomed felon now awaiting execution is identical with that of the great

Boyar, heir to a princely title and illustrons name, who generous declaration of unbelief in Lam son’s crimina, lity I have ventured to quote. No stranger, more inexplicable contrast, has ever presented itself to my mind than that, afforded by the lamson revealed io me by the late criminal proceedings. Such a character as his, teeming with irreconcilable.contradictions, must ever remain a dark impenetrable mystery to those, who, like myself, were only permitted to contemplate its nobler side and brighter aspect. The inevitable, irremediable fallibility of human judgment, when exclusively based upon personal experience, has never been more painfully demonstrated than by the spalling fact that George Lamson, the kiikl friend, genial companion, and approved philanthropist, has been proved to bo be the base wretch who is about to die the death of a dog by the hands of the common hangman.”