BELLE BILTON.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2243, 20 August 1891, Page 3

BELLE BILTON.

The London correspondent of the Argus writes: The death of Lord Clancarty turns Miss Belle Bilton into a genuine British peeress, with a right of entree into the House of Lords and into Westminster Abbey at the next coronation, and should she commit a felony (which is impossible) with a right to be tried before the Lord Steward and the whole House of Lords, with the judges of the land sitting as assessors. She was playing ‘Venus’ at Plymouth when the news of her bereavement arrived, and she at once excused herself from appearing, sending on her understudy, as she has done on previous occasions for a less melancholy cause. Her husband has now about L7OOO a year, and it is therefore thought that she will retire permanently from the stage. He only left her at Plymouth the day before his father’s death, being summoned away by the news of his illness. It is quite pretty to see the overflowing affection of these two for one another in public places—such as the table d’hote at the Berkeley in Piccadillj r , quite the best public dinner in London by the way—not that they are so absorbed in each other as to be always tete-a-tete, for Mr Isidore Wertheimer is generally of the party, bearing a sad and subdued smile as if all that was left to him was to derive what satisfaction he could from contemplating a happiness in which he might have no share. Actresspeeresses are, of course, no novelty ; but Belle Bilton is usually classed as of the music-hall profession, and of these she is the only one who at present enjoys the rank of peeress. Perhaps the next member of the profession is Miss Nelly Leamar (the honorable Mrs Dnncombe). The Countess of Berkeley, who was a prima donna in opera bouffe, has the anxiety of watching a suit in the House of Lords designed to impugn her title, and transfer it to Lord Fitzhardinge. But this is a stale suit, which has been already tried more than once, the Fitzhardinge claim having been, rejected by the House of Lords as long ago as 1811; and one the judges who are now trying it said the other day that he never heard such awful rubbish in his whole life, and that nothing but a desire to allow the bar to earn their fees prevented the House of Lords from kicking the petition into the lobby the first day.