MRS. BRAVO.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3080, 31 December 1878, Page 2

MRS. BRAVO.

We have been so glutted with tragedies during the past mouth that the death of Mrs Bravo has excited very little attention, although the circumstances attending her exit from this world were almost as ghastly as those connected with the death of her husband. That she drank herself into the grave was proved by incontestible evidence, although I must add that a sensational journal has attempted to produce the impression that she may have been the victim of foul play. This suggestion originates in the fact that two'of. her servants deposed that they never saw her the worse for liquor; but the obvious answer to this is that in many confirmed inebriates, especially of the uptyer class, the organ of secretiveness is largely developed, and that only their near relatives or friends are really acquainted their besetting vice. I speak of the cause of death as certain because the post mortem examination showed that she had the drunkard's liver —a piece of testimony which could hardly have been manufactured. It is only fair to Mrs Bravo now that she has passed away to mention two things which may help to modify the harsh judgment which society hat been disposed to pass upon her. In the. first place her counsel, Sir Henry James, was of opinion that no woman who had been guilty of murder could have passed so satisfactorily through so terrible a cross examination as that to which she was subjected. Secondly many persons consider that her husband committed suicide. ¥ A writer in the World who professes to speak from, personal experience declares* that a man can suffer no moreshorrible'fate than to be married to an inveterate drunkard, and that when Bravo found that the woman to whom he was tied for life was both drunken and unchaste it would powerfully move him to gravitate towards the idea of suicide. Another point in Mrs BravoY favor is that since the inquest on her husband she appears to have quarrelled seriously with* Mrs Cox, which it ia thought she would not .have been at all likely to do if that lady had been ,- really privy to a dark secret. Mrs Bravo after the death of her husband lived under the name of "Mrs Turner." Some writers commenting upon this fact speak of her as having concealed herself under an alias, forgetting that her husband's real name was Turner, and that he only assumed that of Bravo at the suggestion of his stepfather. By the terms of the settlement made on the marriage of Mrs Bravo to the unfortunate young man, the stepfather undertook that if he predeceased her she.should inherit £20,000 of his proJerty. Her death of course enables Mr oseph Bravo to make another disposition of that large sum.—Register London Correspondent.