Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 09.pdf/270

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Editorial Department.

THE sentence of Lady Scott for circulating libels concerning her son-in-law, Earl Russell, calls atten tion to the fact that there are at present in Europe quite a number of other people of title and rank undergoing more or less lengthy terms of im prisonment. Lady Gunning, widow of Sir Henry Gunning, and granddaughter of the second Lord Churchill, is serving a term of several years' penal servitude for having forged the name of her father to a number of notes. She might have escaped with a punishment less severe had the fact not been brought to light during the trial that her frauds had extended over a number of years, and that the financial necessities which had prompted her to resort to this means of obtaining money had been caused by her recklessness in betting on the races. Mrs. Osborne, wife of Captain Osborne, of the Scots Greys, who belonged by birth to the aristocratic Elliott family, was sen tenced to hard labor for purloining a pearl neck lace from her dearest friend. Equal severity was extended to Gwynneth Maude, granddaughter of the Earl of Montait, for obtaining goods under false pretences. The Dowager Duchess of Suther land, more fortunate, was exempted from hard labor and convict garb during the six months' imprisonment she recently underwent in Holloway Prison, where Lady Scott is now undergoing her punishment. The daughter of Lord Robert Montague was convicted a year or two ago of the most shocking cruelty to her children, one of whom succumbed thereto. The popular feeling was that she deserved hanging. But owing to the tremendous influence exercised in her behalf by all the relatives of the ducal house of Man chester, to which she belongs, she was let off with a term of two years' imprisonment without hard labor. In times gone by, an English duchess, namely Her Grace of Kingston, underwent im prisonment for bigamy and forgery. At the present moment there are actually relatives of the queen who are " doing time." They bear the name of Count and Countess Leiningen, and belong to the princely and sovereign house of that name. The first husband of Queen Victoria's mother was a Prince of I.einingen. While the count is wearing stripes in an English peniten tiary, the countess is in jail at Vienna for a long series of crimes, including forgery, blackmail, and swindling. The Marchioness of Donegal, a peeress of Great Britain, has time and again been

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sent to jail, generally for brief periods, following her arrest in the streets of London for drunken ness and disorderly conduct. Baroness von Gleissenberg and her pretty daughter, the Countess Waldeck, the two Sicilian Dukes of Villarosa, and Prince Caracciolo have been imprisoned for larceny and fraud, perjury and forgery, assassina tion, and wife-murder.

CURRENT EVENTS. A HORSE-CAR line to the Pyramids has been au thorized at Cairo. IN France the doctor's claim on the estate of a de ceased patient has precedence.

THE muscles of a mocking bird's larynx are larger in proportion to the size of the bird than those of any other creature. THE heroine of the time-honored children's favor ite, " Mary had a little lamb," is said to have been Miss Mary Taylor, who died recently in Somerville, Mass. QUITE lately a process has been invented by which a valuable fibre is obtained from pine needles. The needles are macerated in water to separate the fibre, which is utilized in the manufacture of cloth. It makes particularly fine underwear.

SOME doctors hold that there is more danger going from the cold outside into a hot room, than from the hot air into the cold. It is declared advisable to get heated before going out into the cold; and it ¡s fur ther declared that in most cases it would be more correct to speak of " catching heat " than of " catch ing cold." SPURGEON said, " I never had any faith ¡n luck at all, except that I believe good luck will carry a man over a ditch if he jumps well, and put a bit of bacon into his pot if he looks after his garden and keeps a pig. Luck generally conies to those who look after it; and my notion is it taps once in a lifetime at everybody's door, and if industry does not open it, away it goes." THE obituary addresses delivered upon the occa sion of the death of a member of Congress cost the government a good deal of money. Usually twelve thousand copies are printed, with a steel-plate por-