The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 4, 1898, Page 22

Y, DECEMBER 4, 1898. FATE OF TWO AMERICAN BEAUTIES Who Loved an English Nobleman. AN INTERNATIONAL TRAGEDY. Death of the Marquis of @Anglesey Brings to Light the Sad Story of Two American Women. Special to The Call-Her MARQU fed the other day old, decrepit man, g in his dotage at an age the pan who health of body and mind considers that he is J ng out of his prime, as tar a 5 but are other an in comput > of some A Marquis more or less is of little conce » your true, democratic Ame ic and yet there B linked with the un Henry Paget, Marquis of Ang that come directly home to us. He trifled with the hearts of two of our fairest wom One he made his wife, only to desert her less than two years after their ge. The other sleeps In the Stran, Cemetery at Ger- main-en-Lay Fran; a suicide. r loved wisely, both loved too oung American woman who eyes are dazzled by the glamo! title should read thi: of two great wrong: ly. Itm do her good; it cannot pos- sibly do her harm. The truth may be told bluntly, but truth is truth, how- ever blun It is the story of two women who loved with the intensity of despair and a man in whose soul there bition higher than that of Three times had he marri times had he given his sc the al What matte nothing to him. Women’ Virtue and truth and hon- wa 0 am- passion. Vows were hearts were ) 8 s nothing to this Marquis who died the other day. There were many women whose names were linked with h ome were ladies of noble birth and station; othets were girls of humble origin ill others we! tures wko allowed the musical clink of ~old to drown the voice of shame. But there were two whose names stand out in bold relief. One Miss Mary Livingston King of orgia, a famous belle in her day. The other was Mrs. William Wetmore of New Yor] The great English house of Paget is well known in the United States, quite a number of the American Is. men having marr! Arthur Paget, a nephew of the Marquis of An-lesey, is a ghter of ) . Paran arriage of Miss Pauline meric Hugh Paget is married to Stever became the third ss of Anglesey, wvas born in jeorgla town of Sandhlills, where, before the war, her father was a wealthy planter. When a girl of 18, While on a European tour, she met the Hon. Henry Wodehouse, the brother of the Farl of Kimberley, and he was at once enamoured of her beauty. She is sald to have been so fas- cinating that a man would fall in love with her without knowing it. Her skin was like tinted marble, her features cameo-like in their clear cut beauty, and her voice—it was music itself. After a few months of ardent court- ship the American girl, who could just speak French a little, and as yet had i of marrying aught but a can, became the wife of the Wodehouse. This was in young couple traveled over nent and reached England the year following, when'in a few months the youmrg husband died, leaving his bride in care of his brother, the Earl of Kimberley. After her period of mourning had ex- pired she was presented at the English court and launched into the midst of London society. It.was at this time that she met the Marquis of Anglesey, then a man of 40, with one of the finest titles and fortunes in England. He fell in love with the American widow of 22 and paid her such marked attention that he was reprimanded by Earl Kimberley, her guardian. The Marquis of An ey was at that time a married man. s first wife, Elizabeth, the daugh- r of Joseph Norman Esq., he mar- ried in 1858, when he was a gay lieu- tenant colonel of the Stafford Yeoman Caval he died in 1873, and the fol- lowing year he married a beautiful voung girl, Blanche Mary Boyd, the daughter of a wealthy baron of Wig- d wife of the Marquis pol- f one terrible night in their country home, and three later, in 1880, the Marquis wedded Mary King Wodehouse. Inthe meantime the Marquis had had othe irons in the fire. Previous to his age with the Georgia beauty, and daughter of William Dougherty, who, previous to his death, arried on a commission business in nt street. She was the wife of Wil- liam Wetmore, son of Apollos R. Wet- more of New York. d Mrs. Wetmore lived together E al years, but they were not congenial. She was a beautiful, viva- cious creature, fond of gayety and ad- miration. He was a rather staid man, domestic in his tastes, and had little patience with his wife’s longing for a social career. Finally she went abroad, although at the time of her going there was no hint of a permanent separation. But she met the Marquis of Anglesey and she never came back. It was while his sec- ond wife was still alive. He amused himself with the handsome American woman, and she, having stooped to folly. fondly imagined that his protesta- tions of love were sincere. It was the old story of the moth and the flame. It was arranged that both should secure divorces, and then she would become the third Marchioness of Anglesey. Learning of this arrange- ment, the wife of the Marquis accom- modatingly killed herself. Mr. Wet- more divorced his wife on the ground of desertion. 0000000000000 000000000000000000000 CHECKS DRAWN HECKS for large amounts seem to be the order of the day, but even Sir Thomas Lipton’s large check in payment of import duties cover- ing a certain period of time, the install- ments on the purchase of the Anaconda mines, or on the Coast Railroad in America, which have all amazed the world in their turn, pale into insigni- flcance compared with those that have been drawn recently. The payments made by the French Government as war indemnity to Prus- sia have hitherto held the first rank, in the opinion of well-known financiers, as the largest ever known; but the check drawn for the largest amount on record represents the balance of the war indemnity, with the interest there- on, paid by China to Japan, namely, £11,008,857 16s 9d. The Chinese Govern- ment borrowed, through the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, the sum of £16,- 000,000 to pay this indemnity. The money was transferred at the Bank of England from ‘he account of the Chinese Embassador to the credit of the Government of Japan; the check bears the indorsement of the Chinese Minister to England, Lofenluh, and that of the manager of the Bank of England, and it is also signed by the manager of the Bank of Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. This rare piece of paper is at present in the possession of W. H. Harris of America. Another large check was presented at a well-known bank a few years ago for £5,280,000—that was the sum paid by ‘the De Beere Diamond Mining Com- - pany for the purchase of another very large -dfamond minge. The check In question was signed by two directors. After it had been paid photographs of the check were taken and sold for a small sum and were bought up rapidly. Another iarge check was that drawn FOR :PORTUHNES. on the London and County Bank a few years back, by the Great Indian Penin- sular Railway Company, and a short time before this a check was pald through the clearing-house for over £3,000,000. drawn on Messrs. Glyn & Co., which was paid to the Bank of Eng- land. The largest receipt on record was that given by the Treasurer of the United States. The statement of the condi- tion of the United States at the close of last year, which ends in June, showed that Uncle Sam,|if called upon for a payment of a few millions, would not need to borrow. The amount that figured on_the receipt given by Mr. Ellis H. Roberts, Treasurer of the Tnited States, to his predecessor on his assumins that office, was £199,231,- 360. It is a receipt for the largest amount ever known, and Mr. Roberts, who was recently in San Francisco, presented the Sub-Treasurer with a photographic copy of the same., ———————— An eminent man of science has recently declared that red-haired people are far less apt to go bald than those who are possessed of other colored hair. The av- erage crop on the head of a red-haired erson is only 29,200 hairs. Ordinary dark air is far flner, and over three dark hairs take up the space of one red one. One hundred and five thousand is about the average. But fair-haired people are still better off. One hundred and forty thou- sand to 160,000 is quite a common number of hairs on the scalp of a fair-haired man or woman. This authority does not com- ment on the peculiarities of red-haired people, but it is well known that they are of a more passionate nature than others, and often of a fine and sensitive disposi- tion, akin to what is known as the artistic temperament. e Fifty pounds of hom are annually produce hx a hive of bees. In five %e%? the bees will have increased to So at least they were free to marry. But this did not suit the whim of the Marquis. His moth had singed her wings. Her feeble fluttering aroused no pity in his heart. Besides, another beautiful moth had spied the flame and was already hovering about it with dazzled eyes. So the Marquis married the young Georgia widow. It could not have been his manly heart that attracted women, for even then, in 1880, he is said to have looked the typical rake of cheap melo- drama. But then he had just come into his title, owing to the death of his half- brother, succeeding to an estate esti- mated to be worth $500,000 a year. And, of course, an income like that can cover a multitude of sins. Mrs. Wetmore was stunned. than a week before the Marquis was married to Mrs. Wodehouse he had an interview with Mrs. Wetmore in Paris, during which he appeared as affection- ate as ever, and reiteragted his pledge to be true to her. The next day, however, she was handed a note by the Marquis’ secretary, which had been written the day before the interview, and in which he bade her farewell forever, and gave her to understand that all was at an end between them. She went to the house of Lady Albert Pelham Clinton, the divorced wife of a younger brother of the Duke of New- castle. In speaking of the affair at the time this lady unbosomed herself un- Less 1K f i il =~y o s TIF Aififlqlll;\\\\\w:uu = 0000090000 000000 LADY AN reservedly. “In his letter,” said Lady Clinton, “the Marquis gave her to un- derstand that che must leave her apart- ments and write no more than one let- ter to him. To this she wrote a reply of a most touching character, in which she appealed to the Marquis’ manhood. ‘Remember,’ she said, ‘all I have lost for you. Can you expect that God will prosper you or yours when you,are cap- able of such a dreadful wrong? In an- other passage she says, ‘Can it be pos- sible that you have no conscience or feeling, or that you, a nobleman, are willing to turn me out penniless into the world after all your promises, to say nothing of your pretended affection up to the week before your marriage?" ” It is said that after the Marquis’ mar- riage to Mrs. Wodehouse Mrs Wet- more's lawyer urged that a suit for breach of promise should be institute A correspondence to that effect commenced with the Marq lawyers, who replied that thei- client repudiated the allegation as to the promise, and that it would be useless to try to make a case, as there was no law punishing breach of promise in France, and that an offense committed there could not be tried in England. So Mrs Wetmore committed suicide at the house of her friend, Lady Clinton, in Paris. She swallowed poison, and died in terrible agony, On her finger was a plain circlet of gold, and when this was removed this inscription was discovered inside, “To Annfe from An- glesey, June 1, 1880.” On June 26 of thé same year the wed- ding bells that rang for the Georgia beauty sounded a death knell for the fair New York divorcee. Three days before her death she spoke to Lady Clinton of her husband—for the first time since she had been divorced. “He was always kind to me,” she said, “but we had notking in common. We were not created to live happily togeth- Nl 6co0oo000 e, 6 000 Joson60 0000000000000 GLESEY er. He was much too religious for me, and was not-satisfied unless I went to church all day Sunday; but he was a good, kind man. I never ought to have left him. My fate should be a warning to American women who come abroad without their legitimate protectors.” There was a wealth of pathos in the death wail of the poor, singed moth. The Marquis and his bride spent a year in traveling. The dream of the Georgia girl w realized. She had a title. She had all the money she want- ed. She had diamonds and silks and satins. She could live a part of the time at Beaudesgrt. the beautiful estate of the Marquis at Litchfield; at the other castle, Plas Newydd, near Bangor; at her town house in London, or in gay Paris, if she chose. What more could any woman want? And yet she was not happy. Less than two years after her wedding the Marquis announced one day that he was tired of her and that they must separate. Then he advertised that he would no longer be responsible for her debts. He was subsequently obliged to make a settlement in her favor, propor- tionate to his income, and she has since resided in Paris. The old Marquis wno died the other day was the fourth bearer of the title won at Waterloo by the dashing Lord Uxbridge. All have borne reputations more or less unsavory. One of the first holders of the marquisate was twice di- rectly concerned in divorce proceedings before the House of Lords. He first ob- tained a divorce from his wife, and then himself had to appear as a corespond- ent under such aggravated circum- stances that the injured husband of the lady in the case was awarded £20,000 damages. The son of this Marquis, and father of the man who died the other day, also figured in a similar domestic scandal. So you see it runs in the bleod. - WHIRLS HER WAY THROUGH THE WORLD. NEW dancer hag come to town. She is none other than Freada, the Turkish dancer, who in the palmy days of the Midway at the Chicago World’s Fair was cred- ited with doing a couchee-couche2 dance that was warranted to knock the spots off anything of its kind. She Is not doing it now; but confines her ef- forts to making a human top of her- self, and she does it most effectively. Her contract at the Olympia demands that she continue her twirling dance for not less than sixteen minutes. She must in that time have turned no less than 1500 times, and without stopping for breath, much less refreshments. No one has ever counted to see that she has fulfilled her specifications as to the number of turns, but the stage man- ager sits in the wings every night to see that Freada does not cut out so much as a fraction of a minute. Freada is a Greek by birth, but spent her younger days in Constanti- nople, where she became famed as a dancer. She was imported for the World's Fair and is credited with hav- ing made more money than fell to the lot of most people at the fair. She then went on the road with a company, but people would mnot tolerate couchee- couchee dances outside of the Midway. She then gave her attention to her first efforts in the dancing line and re- hearsed her twirling Turkish dance. She was one of the first dancers to reach Dawson City, whither she went, attended by a maid-in-waiting. Her power of endurance excited the miners beyond her most sanguine hopes. Night after night she did her twirl at the leading concert hall, and as she then did a thirty minute act the miners would first express their approval by handclapping and stamping, increasing as the dance continued, until fifteen, twenty and twenty-five minutes had passed without slgns of fatigue, and then they gave way to more substan- tial expressions of approval in the way of a shower of nuggets such as seldom fell to the lot of Turkish dancers. Freada comes out of Dawson with nuggets of all sizes. Her collections amount to thousands of dollars, and she will return to her native land, play- ing across the country with the view of making her expenses to Turkey. She fmposes to keep her Klondike nuggets intact for old age. Will the Dragon Be Divided ? CRISIS IN CHINA. Reasons that Pacific Coast People Should Be Vitally Interested in the Oriental Question. By Durham W. Stevens. Special to The Sunday Call. NLY yesterday the news came that China, the sleeping giant of the East, had at last aroused herself and was shaking off the shackling superstitions of cen- turies. Hardly had the news been pub- lished when, by one of those intrigues Wwhich appear in these modern days like a page from the “Arabian Nights,” the hapless young Emperor was dethroned, all his well-meant efforts at reform were scattered to the winds, and that remarkable woman, the Dowager Em- press, was again in control. \No one can question the gravity of the crisis which this event has created. It is of especial consequence to countries like the United States and Japan, whose great interests in China may at any moment be imperiled. Yet, notwithstanding this erisis, which seems so like the beginning bf the end, there are optimists who believe that China will escape from this ordeal as she has from others, practically un- harmed. There is a power of passive resistance in this behemoth of nations, they argue;, which offsets its unwieldi- ness and the apparent lack of the fac- ulty of coherent action between its various parts. China before this has been in peril of dismemberment from without and disruption from within, but at the critical moment the danger has been averted and no irreparable damage has been inflicted. In the talk of China’s dismember- ment or partition no account appears to be taken of any possible action on the part of the Chinese people them- selves. It seems to be the general un- derstanding that foreign control will be substituted for Chinese rule, and that the people will remain quiescent, offering no objection or resistance. An empire with a population of over 400,- 000,000 inhabitants; with a territory covering several million square miles, comprising productive alluvial plains traversed by great waterways, fertile valleys and mountains and hills rich in minerals, it is apparently thought, will be yielded up without a murmur. The idea is preposterous. To gain even a reasonably complete control of any one of China’s great productive provinces, to make it foreign territory in fact as well as in name, lines of rail- way must be built, costly military and civil establishments must be main- tained; in a word, many things must be done which cannot be speedily com- pleted. In the meantime armed resist- ance may be expected, and with it chaos, so far as the poor people of the coveted regions are concerned. Of course, we know that strange things are done by Christian nations in the name of commerce, but China is not Africa and the Chinese are not savage tribes. A foreign ruler is re- ported recently to have said that the extension of his country's commerce with China was tantamount to the spread of the blessings of civilization among the victims of misrule “unique in the world’s history.” That is the good old way of putting it. The dif- ficulty is that when commerce is ac- companied by Maxim guns and repeat- ing rifles the blessings of civilization are apt to appear obscure—to the ‘“‘vie- tims” at all events. The Chinese are a peaceful people, disinclined to war, but not cowards. In many of those rich and populous provinces toward which foreign na- tions are now looking longingly no for- eign armed force has ever set foot. The people, although they may not care to enter the military service of their coun- try, where low pay goes with a degrad- ed position, are not incapable of bear- ing arms efficiently. In many parts of China there are brave and hardy sol- diers. The French found it so in Ton- kin, as their loss of 30,000 soldiers shows. Japan did not find victory so difficult, but here was a war against the mandarins who represented and controlled an obsolete and worthless system. A war of resistance to the partition of the country would be a different thing. It might not be suc- cessful, nor even protracted, but it would entail consequences which even the most ardent advocates of the ex- tension of commerce by the acquisition of territory could not view with indif- ference. Every vestige of law and order would disappear. and no man’'s life or property would be safe. The secret societies, the bane of China, would not be slow to take control, and the “braves,” of whom they are largely composed, would hold high revel. Even the flnal restoration of order, with whatever of profit or of power it might bring, could not make this overture to the introduction of the ‘“blessings of civilization” a pleasant memory. If I may venture the opinion, how- ever, prophecies regarding the partition of China, whether immediaate or in the remote future, must be taken with a certain grain of allowance. In the first place, how could such a partition be practically effected? Who would deliminate the metes and bounds, and how would mutual jealousies be recon- ciled and satisfied? So, also, as re- gards “spheres of influence,” except where the term is used in the broadest nse, How can such spheres be de- rmined exactly in a country like China, and how can infringement, or the appearance of infringement, be prevented? The powers which have ob- tained a foothold on Chinese soil will exercise a certain influence in those im- mediate neighborhoods, no doubt, but does that necessarily mean that all other foreign commerce can be rigidly excluded? To buy in the cheapest market and to sell in the dearest is the soul and essence of successful trade. Can Chinese, even within the “spheres of influence,” be compelled to violate that lJaw? The Chinese, as I have said before, are a practical people and good merchants, and it is not likely that the artificial restraints of a “sphere of in- fluence” would long suffice to force them to do violence to their instincts as traders. It should not be understood from what precedes that I intend to belittle either the importance or the signifi- cance of the recent movements of cer- tain European powers regarding China. To me they appear as ominous as they doubtless do to others. My only ob- Ject, as will appear later on, is not so much to minimize the danger, as to draw attention to certain considera- tions which will enable it to be met successfully, should it ever come. There is an element of mystery about Russia’s recent course in China. So far as we know officlally Russia has ob- tained no cession of territory. Her of- ficials_bave denied the story of a se- cret treaty, and maintain that the only object of the Cassini convention was the grant of a rallway concession from a certain point on the Amoor through Manchuria to Vladivostok, connecting with the Siberian line and shortening it several hundred miles. This railway was to be connected with another through Manchuria to some seaboard point, presumably on the Gulf of Pe- chili. This latter line was to be under Joint Russian and Chinese control. Sub- sequently, apparently as a set-off to Germany’s seizure of Kiaochau, Rus- sla obtained control of Talien-Wan and Port Arthur. Here a curious question arises: Was Russia aware of Ger- many's intention to seize Kiaochau before it occurred? The general belief is that she was, but, on the other hand, it has been stated on the highest au- thority that Germany's action was as much of a surprise to Russia as it was to every one else. The fact is import- ant, if it is a fact, because it marks a very definite separation between inter- ests which the world hitherto supposed ‘were, if not identical, at any rate har- monious. Another curlous circumstance is the following. Only two years after Ger- many and Russia, in company with France, had forced Japan to re-cede the Liao-Tung Peninsula to China, on the ground that it was not right for a for- eign power to occupy territory control- ing the approaches to Peking and Ko- rea, one of them had Kiaochau and the other Port Arthur, the most important strategic points as regards the control of those approaches. This will serve very well as the diplomatic version of the fable of the ox and the bull. The position of Russia in Talien-Wan and Port Arthur is peculiar. The un- derstanding is that the territory has not been ceded to her absolutely, but merely the usufruct for a term of years. That leaves Chinese ownership intact, and, coincidentally, the extraterritorial rights which foreign nations have un- der their treaties with China. There i8 one solution of this question which would be as advantageous to China as it would be to every power having commercial relations with her, and that would be the opening of the whole empire, without restrictions and under proper conditions, to foreign trade and residence. There would be difficulties regarding the system of consular, or extraterritorial, jurisdic- tion, but they are not insuperable. Un- fortunately, it is too much, especially since the recent palace revolution at Peking, to expect this concession from Chinese conservatism, even though it offers one of the strongest safeguards which, under present circumstances, China could possibly obtain. But, hap- pily, palace revolutions, even in China, cannot continue indefinitely the ob- stacles to reasonable and sensible pro- gress. China is coming closer and closer to the parting of the ways, when the dormant forces of progress must arouse themselves, perhaps through the sense of impending danger from with- out the empire, perhaps from the hope- lessness of existing conditions within, The awakening may be to disaster and ruin, but it may be, let us hope, to na- tional regeneration. It is hardly necessary for me to call attention to the deep concern which all that affects China should have for the people of this country. Hitherto our interest in the affairs of the far East, especially in those of China, has been but languid at best. If during recent years that interest has increased at all, it has not been, I fear, because the pos- sible fate of the Chinese empire seemed a matter of practical concern to us, but rather because the migratory habits of its inhabitants threatened to create a troublesome domestic problem in the United States. Now, however, all that is changed. Recent events have brought home, even to the most thoughtless of us, a vivid realization of the fact that we are, in truth, a world power, having lnte&uts on many seas and in many lands, where goes the commerce that is to make us even more vrosperous than we already are, but nowhere greater interests than in our itnclent r;elghbor. tha.;l vast but help- ess empire across the broad expan: of the Pactfic. hensy