THE WELLESLEY-VAUGHAN SCANDAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1076, 27 February 1883, Page 3

THE WELLESLEY-VAUGHAN SCANDAL.

The scandal in connection with Colonel Wellesley, and Miss Kate Vaughan, of the Gaiety, seems men; than ever likely to eventuate in a marriage Ere ninny mouths expire it is possible and probable the happy pair will be on their way to Now Zealand. The poor old Duke has done all he knows to upset the match, and rumor declares that he offered the fair Kate a handsome settlement if she would dispense with the ceremony part of the business. Miss Vaughan, however, was not (o be tempted. For years she has enjoyed every luxury that wealth can command, and it was, after all, scarcely reasonable to expect her to part with the prospect not only of respectability, but also os a Ducal coronet, for mere filthy lucre. The career of Colonel Wellesley is a solemn warning to cadets of great houses who imagino they can flout society without punishment, Few men began life with brighter prospects. Sent early into tho diplomatic corps, he was lucky enough to meet and mike friends with the late Lord Beaconstield, who moat kindly helped him up the ladder of fame at a hand gallop. When a more boy he was appointed attache' at the coveted delegation at St Petersburg, and so scandalised did all diplomatists feel at the lad being put over their heads that they absolutely questioned Mr Disratdi himself on the subject in the House of Commons. The great man, however, proved anything but amenable to reason. He told the House he considered Captain Wellesley a very promising youug man, aud well suited to the billet, and if they took his advice they would let him remain there, They did so, and naturally all this ' to do ' did not lessen Wellesley's reputation. By and by, admidst great rejoicing, he married the daughter of our then plenipotentiary at St Petersburg, Lord Augustus Loftus. The ceiemony had not long been consummated when Lord Beeconsfield came into office again, and further promoted him to be first attache at Berlin, In addition to these honours, Wellesley received a full-blown colonelcy, and was, also made one of Her Majesty's own aide-dc-camps. Now came the catastrophe. One night in Jauuary our hero went to the Gaiety Theatre in London to see a marvellous new danseuss, whose graceiulpasseul proved the hit of tho Christmas piece that year. This danseuse was, I need hardly say, Miss Vaughan, then in the zenith of her spiritual beauty. Wellesley came, and Wellesley saw, aud Vaughan conquered. At first their mutual affection was so innocent and platonic that the colonel proposed introducing Kate to his wife ; the latter, however, declined the honor, and when on a subsequent occasion she saw her rival driving in the park wrapped in cassin sable, which could have come only from St. Petersburg, she had her husband watched. Her watching resulted in a ruptur*, and the rupture into a divorce. Having once broken with his wife, Colonel Wellesley began to throw off all restraint. Every night he appeared in his stall at the theatre ; every night he himself handed on to the stage a colossal basket of the choicest hot-house flowers for his inamorata. In the park he drove her abroad ; he travelled with her; in fact, he was now Kate Vaughan's infatuated slave. Ruin came fast. Fiist the Foreign Secretary requested him to with, draw from the Service; and then his name was struck off the lists of the Queen's A.D.C., and he was intimated that he must not attend at her drawing, room or levees. This is social damnation. One by one the great houses shut their doors in his face. Colonials, however, will doubtless be more lenient. Whatever his sins were, the Colonel will probably be a Duke some day, and, as everybody knows, a coronet (especially when strawberry leaved) covers a multitude of sins. I forgot to add that Miss Vaughan is in a consumption, hence the long sea voyage.—Post's London correspondent.