EXTRAORDINARY SCANDAL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 380, 4 May 1910, Page 7

EXTRAORDINARY SCANDAL

IN BRITISH CIRCLES. Sir Henry Lucy, in his letter to the Sydney Horning Herald, writes: A story is just now current in London society which, from its circumstantiality and its monstrous conclusions, would sullice; to take away the breath of people less habitually trained in scandal. Some weeks ago there suddenly died in Paris a well-known member of the House of Commons, heir to a great peerage. It was said that ho succumbed to a sudden attack of pneumonia. The body was brought home and interred near his ancestral home, among general expressions of profound grief at the sudden cuttingoft" of a still young life, which had before it promise of high distinction. It is now gravely whispered in drawingrooms and tofd at dinner tables that this explanation is a pure invention. What actually happened, one is assured, is that the noble lord, having-observed on the part of a friend romrh treatment of a wife recently married, remonstrated •with him. The result was an angry scene, followed by a challenge to a deadly combat. Accepting it, the two made a tryst in the neighborhood of Paris, and at the first round the well-meaning friend was shot through the heart bv the erring husband. In order to hush up scandal, the story of death' by pneumonia was, by common consent between 'the two families concerned., concocted, and published. This is pretty well as it stands. The climax is reached by the further assertion that one of the "duellists is a member of the present Cabinei, who, apparently, having killed his friend, returned to his office in Downing •Street, quietly took up the threads of administrative business, and may be seen any night on the Treasury Bench in the House of Commons. The wildest invention of a reckless romancer never soared above the hold heights of this story. Twice within the past week I have been asked by persons otherwise apparently sane whether I have heard it, and whether I think there is anything in it. ' °