LADY ROSSMORE FINED.

Taihape Daily Times, 8 July 1918, Page 6

LADY ROSSMORE FINED.

"GERMANS MARCHING ON

CALAIS."

Lady Rossmore, Studd House, Hampton Court, was summoned at Marl-borough-sfreet for making a false statement contrary to the Defence of the Realm Regulations. Sir Archibald Bodkin said that on April 13 defendant handed in the following telegram at South" Audleystreet Post-office. "To Cowdcry, Rossmore, Monaghan, Germans marching on Calais. Dover and Folkestone to be cleared." The postal assistant asked defendant if the statements were true. She said they were. The telegram was stopped, however, and tho matter was brought to the notice of Scotland Yard. The contents of the telegram were not truo, and there was no order about Dover and Folkestone. Defendant, said counsel, was the wife of Lord Rossmore, who was living in Ireland, and ■after she had been to Scotland Yard she wrote a letter to the Secretary of the War Office, in which she said: "I am in a most awful state. I have done the most dreadful thing possible to do, for the best. My eldest is in the midst of it in France, and I am nearly out of my mind with anxiety. Saturday afternoon I was told the Germans were marching on Calais, and that they had orders to clear Dover and Folkestone on account of the big German gun. As Lord Rossmore is ill in Ireland and terribly upset about our boy, t, in a moment of excitement wrote a telegram to my old maid so that she could breathe the news to Rossmore before he saw the news in the papers as, his heart is so bad. . . . They tell me I am to be had up for this stupid, thoughtless telegrom, which they, luckily, I see now, have censored. I feel if they have me up I shall never be able to hold up my head again. . . Mothers with sons in France ought to be forgiven a good deal. . . I would sooner have died than done harm, and this is the truth" Sir Archibald said he believed the letter was a truthful and natural explanation. 1 Mr. Muir explained that Lady Rossmore was English by birth; her husband was a retired army officer, her elder son was fighting in France, and her other son, physically unfit, wias doing Nsttonal service in Ireland. Mr. Mead: I yield to the representations from both sides and inflict a normal penalty of £lO with £5 costs.