The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 3, 1904, Page 17

fPages 76020 | ——d) ’ Pages 17020 SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 1904. THREE LIVING DUCHESSES OF WELLINGTON ARE CAUSE OF MUCH CONFUSION AMONG TITLED SET OF ENGLAND All Live Quietly, the Reigning Lady Sharing the Trials of Her Much-Titled Huilqand, Fourth Duke. rniture, a high- preacher, dsome bestowed on o o e matrim FONDNESS FOR CLAY PIGS. 2 - s bbies of this Duchess - and c a large colle travels on arouse jeal her devotion zage ing free passes vate income by selling motor on which may en- y her dressmaking bilis unduly taxing her husband's ytain Robert Williams, Robert Williams, Her predecessor’s maiden sur- name was also Williams, but the two families are not related. She the fourth Duke in of four sons ers, so that there is ood that the title will collateral branches cf Her eldest son, Lord Douro, was a victim some little tinie back of a severe “ragging,” as “haz- ing” is here termed, in the Guards. For some reason, perhaps because he married in his profession, he was unpopular with his aristocratic asso- ciates, who nicknamed him “Do-go.” The t Duke and Duchess of n do not play a conspicuous society. The reason is that the hard up—for a Duke.. By the of the bountiful money grant teful country bestowed on part Duke it extended only to three generations. Besides, being un- ! ul necessity of making s meet without any aid from he poor Duke has become verished by having to pay t of the estate to the two esses. With a large and mily to support, so severe- v felt the need of retrench- they have closed up their aye House, it. Here is an , by the way, for some for a few seasons in ntry residence of Eng- atest soldier. as rich in titles as he in ecash Probably he has is poor more of them than any other noble- was the first time for nearly half a that its doors had been open for an entertainment. When the Iron Duke had possession of it things were different. In the fa- mous Waterloo gallery, a vast hall nearly 100 feet long, handsomely dec- orated and richly gilt, the Duke used to celebrate by a banguet on the 18th of June the anniversary of the battle {ISTORY OF THE DUCHESSES. ¥ We House, Berks of by the h s toric n of marble busts and statues - r::‘?;{y e DUCHESS I | | WE].LX/‘(GT.ON.! THE s to members of the S pretty, she e has two sisters well e kne in socie e Marchioness of . Among A ry and Lady Buckley. Her General Owen Williams, was mander of the Blues, and An- , became dec s himself not lia wife's dressmaking bills, mous by his ve le for It is built of 1 for the payment of which she was fre- but externally ¥ quently sued. Recently, however, this and unpretentious. It contains, la who is one of the shining lights ever, many valued art treasures, some of London's fast set, has been adding man in England, and of course the three Duchesses share them with him. No money goes with the most of them, very few people ever hear of them and they serve no other purpose than to incumber Burke's Peerage. MANY TITLES BUT NO FUNDS. The cynical Labouchere once sug- gested that a law should be passed au- thorizing impecunious peers to dispose of their superfluous titles at auction or by private sale. At present the only way they can treat their titles as financial assets is by becoming com- pany directors—which is getting to be a very risky business—or by marrying American heiresses. And because, if they were allowed to sell some of their titles outright for cash, there would be fewer transoceanic peer- esses. It has been urged that such a measure would undoubtedly be popular with England’s feminine aris- tocracy, who view with jealousy and alarm the extent to which they are being ordered out of their limited matrimonial market by the all-con- quering American girl’s dollars. Be- sides possessing a baker's dozen of British titles the Duke of Wellington is Prince of Waterloo in the Nether- jands, Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo in Spain, and Duke of Vittoria, Marquess of Torres Vedras and Count of Vimi- era in Portugal Apsley House, where the Duke and Duchess now make their home, is his- torically one of the most famous houses in London and one of the least known. When a garden party was given there in 1901 it was said that it i 1h4A & T]-!E FOURTH AND PRESENT DUCHESS® oF '~WELLINGTON of Waterloo, and it was regarded as one of the most important functions of the season. An invitation to it was prized quite as highly as was a com- mand to dine at St. James Palace, and in some respects the dinners were sim- flar, since the King invariably sat on the right hand of the Duke. King George IV was not'a brilliant after dinner speaker, and his oratory did not greatly vary as to sentiment, But one point he used to make every year with unfailing regularity which was vociferously cheered. “If it had not been for the exertions of my friend on the left” he was wont to say, “I might not have had the hap- pine of meeting the present com- pany.” The interfor of Apsley House is a curious mixture of splendor and sim- plicity. The decorations are exce:d- ingly handsome, and the magnificant picture gallery is of priceless hist cal value. The rooms occupied by the first Duke are, on the other hand, al- most bare In their lack of luxury. The great man’s bedroom is still preserved in the same state as during his life- time. Its only furniture is a small iron bedstead, a writing table and chair, a chest of drawers and some books. The Iron Duke, like.a true hero, was simple in all his tastes and preferred to live the life of a soldier rather than that of an aristocrat. The art treasures contained in Aps- ley House, mostly the gifts of crowned heads, comprise specimens of all the best known schools of painting and scuipture. On the grand staircase is the colossal statfie of Napoleon I by Canova, while the pictures upstairs in- clude paintings by Velasquez, Wouver- mans, Murilio and Watteau. also the famous “Holy Family” by Rubens, Sir David Wilkie's full-length portrait of George IV, and Landseer’s “Highland Whisky Still.” Apsley House, though long bereft of its social splendor, is a fitting monu- ment of one of the very greatest of the heroes of England. It was pre- sented to the Duke by the nation .n 1820 and its address was then very appropriately No. 1, London. Here are* WRESTLING THE CRAZE IN LONDON King Edward Gives Ap- proval to Fad and So- ciety Adopts It. LONDON, April 3.—Wrestling is go- ing to become a glant soclety craze this season. The King has given it his imprimatur, the Bath Club has made it a feature in their gymnasium and the young society lions of the west end of London have installed a leading pro- fessional to instruct them in its art and mysteries. King Edward has given instructions to have a stage for wrest- ling added to the gymnasium at Buck- ingham Palace. It will be remembered that when John L. Sullivan visited England the King, then the Prince of Wales, “command- ed” him to appear at Marlborough House, and so impressed was he with the great man that he had a stage for boxing added to the gymnasium at once. Other society establishments are following the example of the King and wrestling accommodation is being im- provised in all manner of shapes. Neglected billiard-rooms are being cleared out and turned into gymnasia, due regard being paid to the require- ments of society wrestlers. Hotels and clubs in course of construction are pro- vided with special accommodation for wrestling. In many places the swim- ming baths are being covered over with a special contrivance so that they can be turned into a gymnasium as the oc- casion demands. / The Duke of Marl- borough’s new house is provided with a gymnasium which will admit wrest- ling, boxing or any other form of manly exercise. * > e Huunug u be A i i i e i - EUROPEAN. SOCIETY HAS DRUG HABIT LR S Women of Rank Falling Victims to Seductive Power of Morphia. LONDON, April 3.—According to Dr. Oscar Jennings, the well-known spe- clalist on drug habits, hosts of English and French society women are turning to morphia in various forms as a stim- ulant and fatigue banisher. Sofamiliar did British officers become with the drug -in the hospitals during the Boer war that many of them came home with a well developed habit and con- vincing stories of its powers. Although druggists in London and Paris are forbidden by law to handle morphia without a special license, the number of sales “on the quiet” are de- clared to be enormous, especially in the latter capital. Often customers are charged five times the regular price, but as they seldom refuse, the drug- gists’ profit is sufficlent to warrant the risk. It is said, too, that a waliter in a prominent Paris restaurant always keeps a hypodermic syringe ready for the use of any patron who may require a dose when he has left his own at home. —————————— Will Stady Monkey Brains. PARIS, April 3—The remains of Consul, a trained monkey, which but a short time ago was the rage in Paris, have been presented to the Paris natural! history museum at Jar- din des Plantes. The body wil be dissected, the bones mounted and the skin stuffed. A special study will be made of the head and brains. EIRPAE T EE REVEALS McGROARY'S IMPOSITION Eccentric Irish “Million- aire” Is Worth but $8000. LONDON, “American m April 3—Interest in the cnaire™ has got so keen on this side of the water that the ex- ploits of the supposedly plutocratic Bernard McGroary—who returned to Ireland from New Jersey a few months ago and who died at Liverpool recently —attracted no end of attention and a good deal is likely to be made of a lawsuit which I understand is coming as a sequel to his history. McGroary, of course, was the “eccentric Irish- American millionaire” who, after turn- ing up in Donegal, his cid home, took up his abode at the poorhouse and who lived there for some time in style be- fitting as opulent a person as he pre- tended o be. Not long after his death it came out that McGroary was not a millionaire at all, but possessed of only about $5000. This, he bequeathed, for the most part, to relatives in the United States, and now I learn that his kins- men on this side of the water are gding to contest the will. It is possible also to tell here, for the first time, why it was that McGroary elected to take up his residence in so unlikely a retreat for a rich man as the Donegal poor- house. It seems that when the Irish-Ameri- can arrived in Dozegal, preceded by tales of the fortune he had amassed in the new El Dorado, his poer relations were overjoyed at the prospect of hav- ing a real live millionaire as a kins- man. The family tree was quickiy built up and relationships hitherto un- heard of were as quickly established The neighbors came to congratulats the McGroarys on their good fortune and Bernard himself became the ob- ject of an admiring and patronizing community of humble Donegal folk. A millionaire does not descend on Done- gal every day, so that McGreary was feted and regaled every one who could by any stretch imagination claim even the most distant relation- ship. The thing went so far that, after a while, the “millionaire” made up his mind to escape from such pressing ai- tentions, and this is whky it was th: to the dismay and corsternation of th McGroarys he tcok up his quarters in the local poorhouse—not as a pauper but as a “‘paying guest” at §5 a week. of