The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-24 00:00:00

SAD END OP A YELVERTON.

If about two or three o'clock on the morning of Saturday
last any one had chanced to wander down Barrack -street, one
of the vilest of the many vile back slums in Douglas, Isle of
Man, he would have found, lying in the gutter, the stinking
half-frozen refuse water flowing over and around her, the
body of a woman, literally hall-naked, and actually frozen
to death, the night being piercingly cold, with a hard frost.
If the wanderer had been an inhabitant of the town he
would, immediately on looking at the face of the dead female,
have recognised the depraved, besotted, bloated countenance
of the drunken and dissolute Hon. Jane Yelverton, alias
Jenny Keefe, by which name she was better known, the
widow of the Hon. Augustus Yelverton, brother of Lord
Avonmore, and fellow uncle with that nobleman to the noto-
rious Major Yelvat ton, whose celebrated marriage and law-
suit have for the last five years occupied the attention of the
public. At an inquest held on the body of the woman on
Saturday it was stated that the Hon. Augustus Yelverton,
the husband of Jenny Keefe, to whom he was married about
25 years since, died in Liverpool about two months ago;
that he loft her a considerable sum of money for her mainte-
nance, which was to be paid to her in instalments by a
lawyer in Liverpool, from which town she had arrived
in Douglas on Tuesday last, her fare to the island (accord-
ing to a statement she made to a woman in a low
public-house on the night before her frightful death)
having been paid by the lawyer in question. The in-
quest was held by James Gell, Esq., high bailiff of Castle-
town, and during the proceedings he stated that the
Hon. Augustus Yelverton and the deceased had lived
in Castletown for many years, and so dissolute and
depraved were they in their habits that he had committed
them to prison fully a hundred times for being drunk and
disorderly. At this time they were allowed by Lord Avon-
more, it was understood, an ample income to keep them
comfortably, but they were in the habit of spending it in
drink as quickly as they got it, and they scarcely ever had
on them sufficient rags, let alone clothing, to cover their
nakedness. Jenny Keefe, who was a low-bom woman, was
the third wife of the Hon. Augustus Yelverton, he having
previously been married to a Spanish lady and an Irish one.
He had no children by his last wife, but he had several by
his former wives. In consequence, however, of his depraved
habits, they were taken from him, and they now occupy re-
spectable positions in life. Although in rank and in educa-
tion also there was such a difference between Jenny Keefe
and her husband, yet they were greatly attached to each
other; they invariably accompanied each other, and if ono
of them was sent to gaol for some outrage against the peace
committed during a drunken fit, it was the practice of the
other to smash some shop windows, or make a disturbance
in the streets for the sole purpose of getting committed to
gaol also, in order that they might keep each other company.
They scarcely had ever a place to lay their heads in, and
they lived the greater portion of their tittle either in the
streets or in prison. Such were the Hon. Augustus and
Jane Yelverton; and their dissolute lives and frightful late
—one dying in a low lodging-house in Liverpool, and the
()the!' frozen to death in the streets of Douglas-convey a
striking lesson of the evils of intemperance. All the cloth-
ing that Jenny Keefe had on when she was found dead was
an old gauze frock which did not reach to her knees, and
was no thick( r than a piece of paper, an old pair of socks
which just reached above her ankles, and a pair of thin
slippers. A few hours before her death she was seen stand-
ing in a house door close to where she was found dead, and
was heard trolling out, in a voice husky with drink, a street
ballad called " True blue for ever."
The jury returned a verdict of—Death from exposure.—
Liverpool Mercury,