DE MURSKA'S LATE HUSBAND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 97, 11 April 1876, Page 4

DE MURSKA'S LATE HUSBAND.

.^I has appeared to me, from several references in the Dunedin papers, and in correspondence thence, that the repeated failure of Mdlle. lima de Murska to keep her engagements has caused' first a good deal of disappointment, and later on, of indignation and. resentment. I can fully sympathise with the impatience and annoyance caused by the circumstances which have prevented lovers of music in Dunedin from being as much delighted and charmed as audiences have been on so many, brilliant occasions in Melbourne. But I think tbat if those who have been most angered by these disappointments could but know the circumstances against which the gifted artiste has. had to struggle during these recent weeks, the feeling of ai>ger would give place to that of deep commiseration. It is of course publicly known that her detention was due to the ill-ess of her husband, Mr Alfred Anderson, whom she married at Sydney Borne two or three months ago,. and who died one day last week. But besides this common sorrow, there bave been peculiar conditions to occasion pain and bitterness over and above the anxiety and uncertainty, and now tbe anguish. of bereavement. The story is a very wretched .one, and it is rather too soon to tell it yet. It is understood, however, that legal proceediogs have been instituted, which will make it public in a few,days. The marriage was one of mere romantic affection on the part of the lady, but it has proved one of those terrible blunders which it is the privilege of "those to commit who have passed the period of youth and inexperience, when mistakes of affection are easily pardoned.. It gave her nothing but a husband broken down in health and dying of a mortal ailment. It gave him as as wife a gifted woman who had reaped a golden harvest by the 'exercise of her wo_droua artistic tilentsih these colonies. Mr Anderson, it (Seems, was riot backward in asserting his claim to tho ownership of this harvest, -and got. possession of as much of it as possible as soon as he could. When his disease became serious, and a fatal {termination was threatened, be waß-; removed to the house of his parents in Melbourne, .and his wife was only, allowed to see him at rare intervals — indeed, hardly at all. It is understood that .Mr Anderson — who, it may, be incidentally mentioned, is a Jew-— haß left a will devising his wife's property as his own, and leaving it to his v own family. One does not care to characterise this' transaction till all ot tbe facts are before tbe public, which they soon will be, as Mdlle. de Mureka (to preserve tbe better known and better name) has given notice of application for letters of administration. The particulars will probably all be brought out when the case comes before tho Courts; but, as is now stated colloquially, it. is a mercenary, sordid, and miserable affair, and no one cau help symp4thißing with the great artiste who has been thus bought aad sold. And what a grim irony is imparted to tbe wretched story by Ihe death of one of the chief actors just as his triumph is secured aud bis bargain is complete.* — Melbourne correspondent of the Times.