MRS GORDON BAILLIE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2896, 11 May 1888, Page 2

MRS GORDON BAILLIE.

■The Dunedin Star's London correspondent writing via San Franscisco on March 19, says Mrs Gordon Baillie,. asked when unscrupulous people were pulling her character to pieces in the Star and Pall Mall, to refute their calumnies, said that she lmd been taught as a child that it was rude to interrupt. When Mr Stead and Mr O'Connor had unfolded to the full tUeiv budgets gossip she wouli}

reply to tliem—significantly. Tliia was a puzzling and effective retort, but it had not the effect intended. Neither Star nor Pall Mall were in the least scared. Stories of unexampled trickery and swindling carried JM, through with really wonderful daring • kept pouring in upon them, the heroine on every occasion being the lady •. now known as Mrs Gordon Baillie. There is scarcely a first-class watering place in Great Britain where houseagents, servants, livery-stable keepers, . and tradesmen are not thirsting for the adventuress'money, or if not her money, her gore. She never seema to have made the mistake of beginning on a small scale. Governess, servants, housekeeper, and sometimes a coachman, accompanied her whenever she descended on a new loadc. _ Moreover there was generally an exhibljjon of a . certain amount of ready money, and this inspired confidence. Within six . months, however (sometimes lss and ,4™ once or twice a little more) Mrs Baillie reached the end of her credit, and vanished with her family, leaving house, servants, governess, and tradesmeu to take care of themselves. Abroad she was less fortunate than at Home. Two little affairs of the above kindiu Florence and. Rome'resulted

in Miss Sutherland (as she was then) being sent to gaol for nine months. Italians are sensitive to beauty in distress and believed that the fair Miss - Sutherland erred because (as she . pathetically assured them) she could not help it; or the months would have been made years. The papers have been full of Mrs Baillie's career since I last wrote, »vhich only requires to be pieced together to-make a most fascinating romance of criminal • adventures. You may perhaps have heard enough of the lady already. If not, some of the following excerpts may amuse you At Bow-street Police Court last i Monday. _ , . , Mr Harding saidl wish sir, to make an application about a person calling herself Mrs Gordon Baillie, whose name has recently appeared frequently in the newspapers of London and Scotland in connection with large swindling transactions. I wish to ask you how I can place the matter before the Public Prosecutor, as she has continued this course ever siiiMfc. 1872, injwhich year she had niipF months imprisonment. Mr Vaugham: Would it not ;be better to make an application to the • district where the circumstances occurred ? Mr Harding: Probably it would;

I'll take your advice in the matter. Buttliey are now swindling in London, because as recently as a fortnight or three weeks ago this woman, together with a person named Frost, who had letters left for him at 4. Walk, Temple, obtained about £BO worth of jewellery from a jeweller at / 82, Craven road, Bayswater, on approbation, and he cannot get either his money or his goods back. Mr Harding's story is as follows: — He says that in 1884 he let a house, with five acres of ground attached, at Walthamstow, to Mr and Mrs Whyte. The lady, he declares, he recognises by a photograph as Mrs 601%! Bailiio. When Mrs Whyte op®, negotiations with him she told imn that her name was Hope-Jolmstone. Among the references she gave wasthe name of Sir Frederick Johnstone, but she added that she would rather "he did not trouble Sir Frederick, although of courso Sir Frederick would be very glad," etc. Her hueband's name, she said, was Knight Aston, and she stated—not that he was exactly a knight, but that he ought to be a 'baron if lie only got his rights. They had taken the name of Whyte to conceal their identity for the time, as their friends would object to their connection with the stage. Knight Aston was at that time singing in " Olivette" at the Strang Theatre. The rent of the " Stoneydown" as it is called—at Walthamstow was £BS, and when the gentleman saw the splendid carriage which Mrs Whyte drove about in, and received good references—some the names of his own friends in Nice—with whom he never communicated, he came to terms with her. His intenfc was to let the house unfurnished,'W Mrs Whyte said she had furniture of her own. But when she was being shown over the house, she was so charmed with the suitability of the furniture and of the taste with which it was arranged that she really thought it would be a pity to displace it. She then resolved to buy the furniture. Mrs Whyte kept all the servants who were at Stoneydown when she arrived. She had three daughters withher, and while there gave birth to a boy. Six months had not passed before some of her creditors liadfound her out, seizedand carried off the furniture, which had not yet been paid for. The landlord turned up at" Stoneydown" in a furious rage, and threatened to send for the police at once. Mrs Whyte went , down on her knees to beg of him not to do that, and promised to get tlm monoy from her solicitor at Birmingham immediately, ' He was induced to leave, and while he tried to fi Afche mythical solicitor sheandherlnrSlnd had gone. The amount which she owos him for rent and furniture is, he says, about I3GO. The tenants left, too, without paying the servants, to one of whom the tennis net and balls were presented in lieu of wages. Our informant says that Mrs Whyte evinced great interest in his mother, and wanted "so much to be introduced to her." In the course of a conversation regarding this lady's drosses, Mrs Whyte remarked "I suppose she pays for her dresses as she gets them, just like myself." ■ "Oh 1101" he replied;" she keeps an account with—," and he mentioned the name of the firm; and Mrs Whyte went and ran up a bill with them, She is" wanted," added our visitor, by several people round Walthamstow. THE ORIGIN OF HER NAME.

The life of this woman appears to be an inexhaustible mine ofrtiawjee, Whether inquiries be pursued Wmndon, Edinburgh, or Dublin, incidents are revealed in her career of a character that would stain the faith of the most .credulous were not circuinstan- J* ces equally surprising placed by v accumulating evidence beyond the reach of doubt. Information .which has been collected by a.Star

goes to show that her assumption of tho namo of Gordon Baillie was not dictated simply by a desiro to chaugo the homely Annio Bruce into a more imposigjr appellation. Indeed her was not the first doublebarrelled cognomen she has sported. In November, 1884, she lived at 59, York Terrace, Regent's Park, under tho name of Mrs Ayrd White. Her tenancy was not of long duration, and it ended unpleasantly, though probably not unexpectedly, by three men taking possession on behalf of the firm who had supplied the furniture. "Mrs Maitland" was another alias of this female Poteus, though in this instance this name—under which she lived at 56, Welbeck Street, where she gave lessons in elocution, and advertised for aspirants to the stage,was probably rather suggested by pendant circumstances than was the product of mere Subsequently she lived at aJwdamo Trejardo's, in Harloy street. When she left, she gave a bill for £4O inpayment. It was not met. Two other addresses at which she might have been found for a short period in 1885 was 5, Duchess street, Portland place, and 4, Bryanston street. At the latter house, she was the tenant of two unsuspicious maiden ladies, who foundjjbir tenant equally as unprofitable Madame Trejardo, But this remarkable woman's first assumption of the name of Gordon Baillie had taken place prior to this. In 1883, she became acquainted with an old lady calling herself La Comtesse de Bronte. She resided in considerable comfort at Foley street, Langham street, and afterwards at 83, Mortimer street W, She was possessed of a large quantity of rich jewellery, and was in receipt of an allowance from the Countess of Aberdeen. In this old lady the adventuress developed a sudden and intense interest, the cause of the Nihilisland induced the Comtesse to accept the presidency of a somewhat shadowy Nihilist society. How this worked out to the advantage of the fair enthusiast is not known, though it may be surmised. And it is here we get the probable origin of the name under which she is .at present living. The family name of the Earl of Aberdeen is Gordon-the Countess has a dog iffitad Baillie. If there is no connecSon to be traced between these facts it must be admitted to be a very curious coincidence that Mrs Whyte should adopt two family names of the Aberdeen family at the time she was intimately associated with an old dependant of theirs. This connection was severed in a manner bordering on the tragic. Mrs Baillie had purchased some pictures of the Comtesse for £7O paid by cheque, which was duly dishonored. She afterwards called on the Comtesse to offer some explanation, and finally the two, with a gerjjjeman of Mrs Baillie's acquaintance, went out to dine. Next morning the Comtesse was ill, and after a week's sickness she was found dead on the iloor of her room. As a doctor was able to certify that she had died from an apopletic fit an inquest was not held. Another of Mrs Gordon Baillie's numerous landladies was a woman named Mott, living in Sotflimpton Street, Strand, For her account she received some pawn tickets representing property—so Mrs Gordon Baillie said—of great value; but when Madame Mott tried to realise she discovered they were special contract tickets, the period for which had already expired. Mrs Baillie, wasonco the guest of an authoress named White, residing in South Kensington, They met in a bus, and so interested did Mrs White become in her new acquaintance that she invited her home to slay. Mrs Baillie left after a three days' sojourn, taking with hpr, inadvertently, some of Mrs White's M.S. poems, which haw since found publication over agpler name than that of Mrs White. While at Barton Hall, Barton-under-Needwood, Burton-on-Trent, Mrs Gordon Baillie kept up a good establishment. She appears to have a liking for live stock, for there were a chestnut horse named Sultan, a mare called Janet, and a pony Taffy, six do™, a goat, four pigs, three turlra, twenty-eight ducks, and 180 fowls; She used to advertise, as a lady of title, for young ladies fond of hunting and a country life to come and live with her. One essential element in the terms was the payment of £IOO in advance—and their stay was quite of a temporary character. Altogether this lady's adventures provide incidents enough to more than make one of the most sensational novels of the day.