THE TALE OF A GREAT WRONG.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1606, 12 July 1887, Page 4

THE TALE OF A GREAT WRONG.

Mr Stead, of th>- Pal! Mull Gazette (nays the London correspondent of the A'giis) tins told ai full length, and with ;ii| particulars of immes, d>tes, and places, the florrowH of a certain Irish lady, Miss Mildred Long;, otherwise Mrts Edward Mart'a Langworthy, who some yehrs ngo was trapped into a sham marriage l>y n well-known yachtsman, »ud h»s tmjc" been most vilely used by her supposed hufcband, his family, and his legal acvisers. It in not usual for journalists to trouble themselves with stories of domestic wrong, unless in the form <".f law sports, aDd although this case has been dragging itself through the courts for year*, it never came before them in a form which was deemed suitable for reporting at length. The story of the Langworthy marriage runs in very much the same general lines as the great LongworthYelverten marriage case of thirty years ago; and it is a singular coincidence that the villain of this piece is of the same Lancashire family as the heroine in the Yelverton case, Langwoithy merely th:» north-country vaii-uit of the name Longworth. Edward Martin Langworthy is the son and nephew, i'«spective'y, of two very rich old widows, whose heir he is to be. He is a solid lump of humanity,' whom his mother, ambitious as she ia for himj has not succeeded in raising into any -social position. Her first 'effort at raising him consisted in arranging a marriage with a Lady Alice Perry, a sister of the Earl of Limerick. Lady Alice Perry had 'divorced bar first husband, or been divorced from him in catrura —on grounds which were never publicly disclosed, but were known not to involve any charge against her reputation. Still, she was not a very e igible partner anyway, and in a few ye irs the marriage Wrts dissolved by the lady's death, the history of the union tending greatly to vindicate the reputation of the first husband. During :his widnwerhood e Mr Langworthy fell in with Miss, Long, the heroine of Mr Stead's sto'y, vrho ,was a successful teacher, and he tdlked about marriage, endeavoring, however, to effect her preliminary ruin. Here the narrative becomes rather hazy, as the lady states that they went through a ceremony of marriage in a Catholic Church on the north coast of France, at which no witnesses were present, and though She seems to have had. doubts «n to the suffioiepcy of this ceremony, she shortly after consented, in Mr Stead's language, to " mergo her existence " in liis (Mr Langworthv's— not Mr Stead's), but under promise of a further and better ceremony at a later date. This ceremony consisted in « religious service performed by an Amercn Presbyterian minister at Antwerp. It was of a formal and solemn character, but mv.did of itself by Belgian law, where marriage is a civil contract, which mti"'t he entered into before a mayor. Langworthy almost immediately took his wife to Buenos Ayres, where he has vast possessions. There he quarrelled with her, ill-used her, repudiated the marriage, and finally pent h»-r home in a filthy foreign steamer, when near her confinement. Mr Stead oid ; a boid thing in exposing :his story ; but he soon found his re ward, The "' Langworthy Marriage' caught on" as the expression is ; the circulation of the paper doubled. Meaning at first to devot« two or three articles to it, he found that the appetite of the public came in eating. He therefore carried on the story through every phase of the lengthened and tortuous litigation by which the unhappy woman has en--deavored to bring her husband to justice. For twenty-one days the public has devoured the story. Now it is done, and Mr Stead has called on his readers to subscribe, which they seom ready enough to do, over £4OO being received the same day. The Courts h;<ve awarded Mrs .djungwortliy li.rgo sums by way of alimony, which is still accruing. They are likely to award her still more money in the shape of damages for breach of promise.. They have, moreover, declared her hußbtind a binkrupt for not pay r ieg to hie! wife what had been awarded', to her, but his dogged north country : nature prompts him to defy all the Courts in England and their decrees, living, as he believes secmely, on his South American estates. The object of the subscription is to enable r the lady to go to South America and sue him on the Snglish judgments. Her cane has been longer knoTin out there than here, and the greatest reprobation is felt both by English and Spaniards towards Langworthy. It is doubtful if he can escape from ha liabilities any longer. I have seen the heroine of the story. Sta is tall, f..ir and very graceful. She must haye been handsome, but sorrow and misery have for the present Rt least played sad havoc with her beauty. i