The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-15 00:00:00

4111 E SUN, ISNDON, TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 15, 1861.

A REAL SOCIAL EVIL.

Last week we had to report of an inquest at
Holloway on the body of a young lady who met her
death, as many other women have within the last
five years, from the absurd and mischievous fashion

of wearing enormous and distended skirts. From

Wakefield we had an account of a female servant
burnt nearly to death from the same cause, and
yesterday a London physician walking in the
public streets had his leg caught by a steel skirt
and received very serious injuries. The remark
seems to be a just one—that no fashion of dress on
record has probably caused so many deaths. In
the fatal case of last week the jury added to their
verdict of accidental death "a strong recommenda-
tion that, from the numerous fatalities which have
occurred in all classes of female society, the present
fashion should be immediately abandoned." The
deputy-coroner agreed with the jury.
A wish has been more than once expressed that
somebody would publish the number of victims to
accidents from the use of crinoline and hoops since
the present mania set in. In the last century there
was a fashion of hoops which we all, in our young
days, considered so foolish and ugly that it sensibly
affected our impression of female character in that
generation. The idea that our countrywomen
could ever again adopt such an absurdity was
scouted, when propounded by some philosopher who
understood the laws of the human mind in regard
to the authority of fashion. But the hoop of the
18th century was far less troublesome and mischie-
vous than that of the 19th. Readers of " Sir Charles
Grandison" remember that Harriet Byron and her
friends were wont to " slip their hoops over the left
shoulder" in order to get into a sedan chair, and
also to make room for the gentlemen in the coach.
The roomy family coach of those days would not
accommodate the gentlemen if the ladies' hoops
had hung down. But the ladies were more conside-
rate then than now, and had their dress so mode as
that the hoop would slip out of the way. The grates
then stood higher and further into the fireplace ;
there were no railway platforms, and no narrow
steamboats from which victims could be swept to
destruction by the ladies' petticoats. Bad as the
fashion was, it did not compel the appeal to the
conscience and humanity of the sex which our
very juries now find themselves called upon to
make.

Nothing can be more distasteful to us, and to
many others who will say " Amen !" to the com-
ment of this jury, than the petty tyranny which
overbears the will and pleasure of women in regard
to their dress, or which annoys them in their proper
work and amusement of arranging themselves ac-

cording to their own taste and convenience. True
gentlemen were as heartily disgusted as any ladies
when, some years ago, a dirty trick was resorted to
discredit the Bloomer dress, which was supposed to
have some recommendations in regard to health,
cleanliness, and convenience, as well as grace. In-
stead of leaving women free to decide this for
themselves, their judgment was overborne in a
singularly disgraceful way. This was not the only
occasion on which Englishwomen have, had reason
to complain of molestation by masculine opinion in
a province which is professedly their own. They
have also, 'on the other hand, met with great and

long-continued indulgence in regard to fashions
pernicious to themselves and others. The bonnets
of the last two or three years are declared by our
physicians to be the cause of the great increase of
maladies of the head and eyes; the rheumatism,
the neuralgic pains, the decaying teeth, the in-
flamed eyes; yet the bonnets which Mr. Spurgeon
would have Preached against, but that looking round
him he " could not see any," have not been inter-
fered with by coroners' juries, or by patriarchal
domestic authority, any more than the tight lacing
which has tortured to death many a poor martyr to
a conventional idea. This very evil of crinoline
and hoop we have borne now for above five yeas,
with more or less discontent, but without
interfering. The date is fixed, and will be remem-
bered in history, by its being a trifle older than the
Prince Imperial of France. It suited his mother's
convenience to adopt the fashion when his birth
was expected ; and " all ladies in all lands" in
which French fashicns bear sway had senselessly
followed the lead of the Empress till they have be-
come responsible for more deaths, as we before
observed, than any other fashion ever caused.
During these five years we have done our best to
be patient under an evil which we hoped would be
short-lived. We have had no comfort in social
meetings, because no dinner-table and no ball-
room, no box or stall at the theatres, no carriage,
and no boat could accommodate both our families
and ourselves. We have found it difficult and dis-
agreeable to walk with our wives and daughters on
pavements and in lanes and country footpaths made
for people more naturally dressed. We have seen
the choicest flowers in our gardens, and the most
cherished plants in our greenhouses cut off by the
hoop, We have paid .a fare and a half each for wife
and daughters in travelling by coach in rural dis-
tricts, and have lost all our pleasure on board
steamboats from the anxiety of watching lest any
of our party should sweep a child over into the
lake or river. Our wardrobes afford no room for
our clothes, because the women of the family
want more space than they can get. For five
years we have not had room to turn our-
selves round in our own homes. The cost of
female dress in a household when every gown
and petticoat, from the wife's to the cook's,
is twice as large as it ought to be, is no small
consideration to the bread-winner of the esta-
blishment ; and a graver one still is the effect.
on the morals, sense, and taste of the maid ser-
vants. In the recent report of the Education Com-
missioners there is an anecdote of a school filled by
150 girls, nearly all of whom would afterwards be
domestic servants. Of those 150 scarcely one had
a pocket-handkerchief, and scarcely one had not a
h oop—athick,
hard, headvyy, unyielding hoop.
After
a n
address
by a la
who remonstrated
againt the folly, and cited Miss Nightingale's ex-
cellent remarks on crinoline petticoats in her
"Notes on Nursing," many hoops disappeared, and
pocket-handkerchiefs became more common. The
girls who did not yield had the example of ladies
and their maids to plead for continuing to require
yards of space apiece wherever they went. But
what a prospect was before them ! The cook could
not pursue her business without incessant personal
danger; the housemaid may meet the fate of other
housemaids, and be burnt to death upon the hearth ;
and the nursemaid is more likely than not to push
some of the children off a footbridge, or a river side
path, or from the causeway into the road. Such
things as these we have borne for five years with-
out further resistance than a declaration of our
distate to the fashion, and an occasional hint of its
inconvenienceS, and of the effect produced by this
folly to the general estimate of female sense and
delicacy in our day and generation.
The matter has now become more serious. It is a
question whether we can be justified in permitting.
a practice which we were anxious to keep our tem-
pers with as a nuisance, but which is now recog-
nised as dangerous to life. It would be a public ser-
vice if somebody would publish a list of the known
casualties from this cause. Besides the deaths by
fire there have been many by crushing under car-
riage wheels and in machinery, and in narrow
spaces where a woman reasonably dressed would be
in no dAnger. There have been cases of actual dis-
embowling from the gashes inflicted by broken steel
springs and hoops. There have been 'drownings,
wounds, cruehings, burnings, many torturing
modes of death ; and it is no wonder that juries and
coroners now appeal to the sex to cease their sub-
ornation of murder.

How is it to be done ? some ask. Our country-
women are apt to follow a fashion abjectly, we are
told, because they have a horror of appearing inde-
pendent in their judgment about external appear-
ances, and earning the name of being " strong-
minded women." Has it never occurred to them
what dreadful strength of mind it must require to
uphold a fashion which will inevitably cause the
death by torture of a certain number of persons
before the end of the year? We are told that the
imaginations of women are too strong for their
judgment•; and that they are carried away by an
idea. We should lather say that it is from defect
of imagination that they err in this case. If they

could once see a girl in the agonies of burning, and
hear her shrieks : if they could once encounter the
little procession carrying a child to the hospital, his
baCk broken by a lady's petticoat having swept him
under the wheels of a dray ; if they could see a fac-
tory girl caught by •the skirt, and crushed before
the shaft could be stopped, they would gladly wear
any shape of gown for the rest of their days
rather than be responsible, in the millioneth
degree, for any more such intolerable spec-
tacles. But who is to move ? There are ladies,
and not a very few, who have throughout de•
clined making themselves foolish and mischievous;
there are millowners who have interdicted crinoline
in their factories, and hospital authorities who in-
sist on rational and inoffensive dress in the wards.
But who will introduce a change in places of less
grave occupation—at home, and in scenes of public
resort ?

Surely we may look for this to the first lady of
the land. She has never exhibited the extreme of
that or any other fashion, and it must naturally be
a consideration with her that whatever mode she
adopts will be exaggerated by others. When her
daughter was on fire, some years since, from her
hanging sleeve catching the flame as she was seal-
ing a letter, the Queen adopted in the royal laundry
the mode of starching muslins which prevents their
burning dangerously, and in multitudes of private
houses the example has been followed. If it had
been as well known in America the house of the
poet Longfellow would not now have been desolate,
and the six ballet-dancers at Philadelphia, whose
fate has shocked us all, would have been living
still. If the Queen were known to discountenance,
practically and expressly, the fashion of hoops,
which renders it but too easy to set women and
children on fire, and impossible to put it out, the
evil would immediately disappear from our draw-
ing-rooms—•presently after from the farmhouse, the
shop, and the schoolroom—and ere long from the
kitchen and the workhouse. Meantime a coroner's
jury has pointed out to our countrywomen a respon-
sibility which we trust they will, of their own free
will, take to heart, so as to be ready to follow the
royal example which we anticipate; or, if that
should be wanting, to act without it in that sphere
of home in which every F,nglish matron is a queen.
—Daily News.

PEDESTRIANISM.

WEST BROMPTON.

FOUR MILES RACE BETWEEN DEERFOOT, THE
INDIAN, AND WILLIAM JACKSON, THE AMERICAN
DEER.—The Indian, it will be recollected, came to
England from America early in August last, and
although not more than two months has elapsed
since his arrival, that brief time has been sufficient
to win the foremost place as a runner. As all that
appertains to the career and doings of this really
wonderful runner possesses interest, we may here
mention the men with whom he has already con-
tended. The first match was with E. Mills, of
Bethnal-green, for £25 a side, and the six miles
champion belt, when Mills proved the winner ; but
although the Indian was upon that occasion de-
feated, the style in which he ran at once stamped
him a pedestrian of high capabilities, and it is not
a little for Mills to boast that he in this struggle
had the fortune to be victorious, as the Englishman
ran this race under no slight difficulties, having
suffered, while training, with a bad foot. The next
match in which the Indian figured was on Monday,
Sept. 16, at the Copenhagen Grounds, Manchester,
when, in the presence of thousands, he defeated
John White, the" pet runner of the North," in this
memorable four-mile race for £5O, the Indian being
allowed 50 yards start. Although White was de-
feated in this brilliant struggle, it is only just to
state that among his friends he lost no feather of
his popularity, as no man could have struggled with
greater perseverance ; and defeat by his admirers
was alone attributed to the fact of his having to
allow a:start to such an opponent as " the stranger;"
who, it was admitted by all, was well able to have
contended with the Manchester champion on even
terms. After this race, on Monday, the 23d of Sept.
at Hackney-wick, Deerfoot contended for the Ten
Miles' Champion Cup and £6O in specie, when
he again proved triumphant, running those who
opposed him to a stand-still. After this he ran
John Levett (once the fastest ten-mile runner
of his day), at the Rotunda Gardens, Dub-
lin, for £5O, and disposed of him with
ease. This race took place on Monday, the 30th
of September, and on the following Monday (Oct. 6)
he again ran in Ireland. On this occasion the dis-
tance was 12 miles, when he was once more victori•
ous, displaying his speed and endurance in this
struggle in a pre-eminent degree, the twelve miles
being run in 65 min. 6 sec., beating his old opponent
Levett, with three minutes start, at seven miles,
and again running little Mills so completely down
that on the termination of the tenth mile he
fainted, and was carried off the ground. It will
thus be seen, that with but one single exception,
he has been successful in all the matches in which
he has been engaged. The doings of William Jack-
son are familiar to all who take an interest in this
popular pastime ; and, taking all in all, a more ex-
traordinary runner never stood before the public
during the long number of years (more than 22)
he has been "on the road." The multitude of
matches he has during that period been engaged
in, both in England and America, would fill a
column. On American soil, 17 years since, he beat,
at all distances, the "red skins"..brought against
him, and at his age yesterday's defeat was a cre-
dible proof of how much he can yet do. The
struggle took place yesterday, on Mr. J. Roberts's
Ground, Brompton, and such was the interest the
event produced that there could not be much less
than 6,000 spectators assembled on the ground.
Reserved seats were provided by the proprietor,
for which an additional price was charged, but
towards the time of starting so dense became the
crowd that they broke down the barriers, and
having achieved this, took possession of the green,
and arranged themselves some three deep all round
the course. Some who had paid the extra for re-
served seats, complained of being thus interfered
with in this unceremonious manner, but it is only
right to say that the proprietor might as well have
tried to stay the waves as to have prevented the
rush of tee human tide. The race had been fixed
to be run at four o'clock, and soon after the time
named the competitors made their appearance,
Deerfoot, who was waited on by Mills, being
the first to do so, although Jackson was not more
than two or three minutes behind. The same
excitement prevailed to get a peep at the
" Apollo of the Forest" as on former
occasions. The Indian was dressed in the same
fashion as when he ran Mills at Hackney Wick,
having his body dress of red and white, ornamented
with bells, while round his head he wore a red
braided band, in which was placed an eagle's
feather. He was much thinner than when we last
saw him, and altogether was in better trim than
he had been on any preceding occasion. Jackson,
who had trained at Wandsworth also, looked well
for an ', old 'un," and so satisfactorily had he run
his trials that it was considered by many that the
Indian would have to do all he knew to win, the
shortness of the distance being looked on as a point
in Jackson's favour. As Jackson is of small stature,
the contrast between the Paleface and the Redskin
was striking. The competitors walked gently over
the ground, Jem Mace (the Champion), who took
great interest in the match, forming one of the In-
dian's train. As they proceeded round the ground
they were received with much enthusiasm. To com-
plete the four miles they had to make the circuit of
the course 16 times.
The preparatory matters having been adjusted,
the competitors took up their position at the mark,
and on the word off being given bounded away. On
starting the competitors went away level, and con-
tinued to keep side by side for something like 30 or
40 yards, when Deerfoot came to the front, and just
headed his man. "The Indian has taken lead," was
shouted by a hundred voices. As they went round
the bend of the course the Indian made one of those
spurts for which he is now famous, and though
there was the same rolling, rocking gait in his
action, for which he is noted, still, from
the wonderful style in which hel was covering
the ground, there could be no mistake in his run-
ning. Jackson, too, who in style and action formed
a striking contrast to his opponent, was also run-
ning remarkably well, and on the finish of the first
lap (440 yards) was not more than three yards in
the rear, indeed, according to his accustomed prac-
tice he was waiting on his man. Throughout the
second lap there was not the slightest variation in
the positions of the men, the lead still maintained
by the Indian, the " music of whose bells " an-
nounced his approach before he could be well seen.
When the third lap (three-quarters of a mile) had
been commenced, Red Skin was still about three
yards in front of his opponent. As they were racing
this lap, and while they were going down the de
of the course, it was imagined that Jackson had b
passed his opponent, but this was found not to e
case; Mills, who ran just in front of his man, in
waiting on him, being, by these in the distance,
taken for the American Deer. No sooner d the
fourth lap been commenced than Jackson mnatwa
pretty effort, and closed upon his man. For a few
strides they kept together, when Deerfoot gathered
himself up, made a vigorous dash, and soon left his
opponent, thus maintaining the lead to the finish

of the mile, which was covered in 4 minutes 52
seconds, Jackson being not more than three yards
in the rear. Throughout the fifth, sixth, and
seventh laps the race was admirably contested ;
for although the Indian had the lead, yet he was
not more than two or three yards in front.
When the competitors had finished the eighth
lap, this being the end of the second mile—
which was done in 10 minutes 11 seconds—
' they were all but shoulder to shoulder. As
they went up the straight, for the commencement
of the third mile, Jackson, with his arms screw ed
well into his quarters and his head slightly
bent on one side, made one of his well-known efforts
to wrest the lead from his opponent. For some 30
or 40 yards they kept even strides, but again, as
before in these spurts, did the Indian display his
turn of speed by breaking from his plucky oppo-
nent—being, as he once more went away with the
lead, cheered in the most enthusiastic manner. On
the finish of the lap, Jackson was, as before, about
three yards in the rear; when the tenth round (two
miles and a half) had been accomplished, he was at
least five yards to the bad, and thus he kept gra-
dually falling more and more behind until the finish
of the third mile, when the Indian headed his oppo-
nent by at least a dozen yards. This portion of the
match was covered in 15 min. 34 sec., and now it
became evident that it was all up with Jackson. As
he commenced the first lap of the fourth mile it was
apparent he was in distress. The muscles of his
neck were much swelled, while, with his head bent
forward, and mouth partly open, his breath came
with that sobbing sound which is a sure sign that
nature must soon give way. This proved to be the
case, for before this lap was ;finished Jackson
stopped dead beat. Deerfoot, who was well ahead
at the moment, was therefore left to run the last
three-quarters of a mile by himself, which he did at
unabated speed, the four miles being completed in
21 min. 2 sec. The Indian at the finish did not
appear distressed. In fact, it was the opinion of
many that he had run the latter part of the dis-
tance quite within himself.

THE B.RI7ISH PEERAGE.

(From the Dublin University Magazine.)

The principle of primogeniture, infact, is stability, while
that of partition is division. At the same time, we enter- I
tain no bigoted prejudices that could prevent us from
acknowledging that the prayer, esto perpctuum, should
never be tranformed into the shape of laws for perpetuat-
ing either particular families or dynasties. The elastic '
freedom Britons enjoy in this respect is one of the best
parts of their general liberty. The institutions of their
country do not, indeed, admit of a Bonaparte rising to
empire, or of a Lincoln obtaining the highest office in tho
state; yet less barriers than exist in France oppose them-
selves to a man capable of elevation in British society, the
manners of which, moreover, admit of more calm and real
enjoyment of its various dignities than is possible in the
Transatlantic Republic. While high birth retains its due
value, this consideration is held insignificant compared
with great personal merit. An examination of the British
Peerage-book will show that the House of Lords has been
recruited without regard to ancestry, though, at the same
time, the honour of admission to that assembly is enhanced
by the circumstance that it contains men of the most illus •
trious lineage. Uninformed persons sometimes speak as if
it were an :exclusive, antique, feudal caste ; but the bulk
of the peerage is composed of comparatively modern
titles, which have been acquired, for the most part, in
the profession of the law, in the military, naval, and
civil service of the Crown, and, to a large extent, by
rising from the ranks of industry. Some of these
latter instances furnish striking examples of that energy of
character which enable the founders of those titles to raise
their posterity to hereditary permanent wealth and rank ;
and the accomplishment of this ;result, to which our laws
sanction and favour, was, in all likelihood, their strongest
incentives. In fact, the peerage has received continual ac-
cessions in an eminently commercial country, where every
50 years has, by developing some vast source of riches,
seen a new and powerful class rise up. First, the
Turkey merchants, then the planters enriched in the
West Indies, and then the nabobs of the East, who
mostly merged in the squirearchy or lordship of
their native land. The enormous contracts and expen-
diture of succeeding wars created the loanmongers
the application of steam and science to industry
developed the manufactures, and enriched shipowners and
merchants ; and the vast railway works have increased the
great and still growing class of capitalists, most of whom
have, in turn, aspired to take well merited place among the
landed aristocracy. The transfers in England during the
first half of the present century, the comparatively larger in
Scotland, and superlatively vast in this country, prove how
extensively the soil is put up for sale; and we believe we
may assert, without fear of contradiction, that any capitalist
who may prefer the smaller percentage land renders to either
the high profits of speculation or early returns from the
funds, can select to invest in the purchase of an estate in
any country in the three kingdoms that pleases him best.
Such being the freedom of the British soil, how are we to
understand orators who harangue about the evils of the
existence of "feudal laws and tenures" in Great Britain ?
If they know what they mean by these terms, we do not.
Excepting a very few estates feudally held—such as those
settled by the nation on Marlborough and Wellington—
every landed property is liable to alienation; and there is
neither legal nor conventional barrier raised against the ad-
mission of a man of the people into the highest circle of the

aristocracy.
It has often been remarked that the nearer a country is
to the capital—whether London, Dublin, or Edinburgh—
the less lasting are its landed families, because its proxi-
mity to a centre of luxury draws the aristocracy into a
vortex of expense, which sometimes engulphs the un-
guarded. Quaint old Fuller illustrates this action of a
metropolis by the fable of the contest between the sun and
the wind, which first should force the traveller to put off his
clothes. The heat of the sun soon made him part with
them, while the wind had only caused him to wrap them the
closer round kim. " This," observed he, "is moralised in
our English gentry. Such as live near London, in the
warmth of wealth and plenty of pleasures, quickly strip
themselves of their estates; whilst the gentry living on
the confines of Scotland, in the wind of war, buckled their
lands, like their armour, the closer unto them, and since
have no less thriftily defended their patrimonies in peace
than formerly maintained them in war. Happy for the
social fabric of the three centuries has been the free-
dom with which wealth newly made in counting-
houses frequently supplanted ancient but:decaying fami-
lies. The aim of prosperous traders to settle their posterity
in honourable and permanent positions in the neighbourhood
of the cities where the accumulations were made, has pro-
bably acted asj the strongest motive for making those
accumulations. But the two processes of sale and
purchases are continual, particularly within widening
circics round the, capitals ; and the instances,
near Edinburgh, in which families, raised to
wealth in the first generation, launched into ruinous ex-
pense in the second, and disappeared in the third, have
been so numerous, that this social revolution was hitched
into a proverb—" The grandsire digs, the father bigs, the
son thigs," or, in ordinary parlance, the grandfather
worked and made a fortune, the father built a fine house,
and the son, "an unthrifty son of Linne," took, when lands
and goods were gone and spent, to thieving. Merchants
are proverbially princes to .day and beggars to-morrow,
and so long as the genius for speculation is exercised by a
mercantile family, this talent which gave them landed pro-
perty may deprive them of it, unless the prudent step of
settling and entailing be taken by each succeeding her.
Suck an act is a deed of insurance in favour of posterity, a
fortification against extravagance. When omitted, there is
no safeguard for the permanent prosperity of even the
highest noble family;—
And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a scrivener, or a city knight.

It was because the Duke was proud that the favourite
seat of this vain-glorious Villiers passed into other hands,
pride in extreme preceding his fall, and giving place to
humble and honest industry. As our author shows in his
chapter, called " The Doom of Buckingham," a singular
fatality has attended every family that has borne this title.
Our own day has witnessed the sale of much of the estates
of Richard Plantagenet Nugent-Grenville-Temple; the
late wearer of this ducal coronet, proving that the posses-
sion of a princely revenue is no security against running
into the real poverty of debt. The vast treasures of art
and literature collected at Stow, one of the finest show
places in England, have been sold and scattered, and the
splendid seat itself—
How changed I Those oaks that tower'd so high,
Dismember'd, stript, extended lie.
Allegorically viewed, this has been the fate of innumer-
able proud families. Bat while those oaks of the British
forest of society have fallen, other stems have risen in their
place, and gradually taken rank among tho old timber of
the land.

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Aulsntriancoanrsnei
giments of four, 300 out of 1,200 officers who were not in
active service have obtained employment.
We stated some little time tack that the force
at Tien-tsin would be reduced to two European regiments.
The Indian forces move immediately. They obtain Indian
pay and allowances, and of course the Europeans must be
placed on an equality. It is said, however, that when the
Indian detachments leave, the Europeans will be deprived
of a large portion of their present emoluments, a proceeding
not very fair or dignified on the part of the authorities. We
cannot regard the withdrawal of the troops with feelings
other than those of uneasiness. Oar private accounts from
China are of a very unsatisfactory character. Mr. Bruce is
in fear of his life at the capital, and, despite all assertion to
the contrary, the treaty of Pekin is as much a nullity as
was that of Tien-tsiu. We now hear of the death of the
Emperor, and whispers that the Chinese are disposed to
disavow the whole of the arrangements so hurriedly made
with Lord Elgin in 1800. It seems a very difficult condi-
tion of affairs to deal with, and sending away our troops,
the only kind of ambassadors apparently respected by this
inscrutable people, does not wear the aspect of wisdOn2.—
Army and Z'avy Gazette,

CAS.e OF ALLEGED IMPOST.ZION.

A -person-. styling herself Miss Mary Josephine
Hilton Hu ;hes, and representing herself to be a
young lady of rank and fortune, and a native of the
isle of Fre.) ice, when on her way to Ireland from the
Mauritius early in the present year, became ac-
quainted -with two ladies (fellow passengers), and
relatives to a highly-respectable gentleman whose
family live near Thurles. Miss Hughes so won the
friendship of these ladies by her fascinating man-
ners an d well-told stories of the unkindness of her
guardian, who, having fallen in love with her, and.
being indignantly rejected by her, ceased to give
her money, and as she was not of age, left her in
a;stress, and then poisoned himself. They, believing
her tale to be true, took pity on her and gave her
an invitat' ion to Thurles, which she accepted, and
remained t here several weeks. Miss Hughes also
became tht guest of the Roman Catholic Bishop,
with whom she dined. She was present at the
imposing ca remony of the profession of a nun,.
and devoutlyt joined in all the religious observances
which tool'
place at the time. When she
made up he, mind to leave Thurles she had not
money suffici cut to pay for a ticket to Dublin, and
left a parcel -e 'ith the station-master in lieu of her
fare. Having 6 pent some time in the metropolis she
again visited 1 hinges, and on her arrival there told
the station-mast 'er that she had lost her ticket and.
had no money to
,pay ; but inquiry being made by
the railway offices s, suspicion was excited. Soon.
after she went to J emplemore, where she spent a
•taken a drive with her one
week with a young , lady who had been a governess
in Thurles, and havit.
day to Borrisoloigh sh eyartook rather freely, it is
alleged, of wine. Nothing more was heard of Miss
Hughes until the month of June, when a clue was
found to her whereabouts .in Dublin. Last Friday
she again made her appear. nee at Templemore, and
told the old story to the statio,l-master, of having lost
her ticket, and being without money for another.
From the railway station she eilrove to Mrs. Connell's
Hotel, and thence to Barnane, vhere on finding Mr.
Carden from home she represented herself to Mrs.
O'Donohoe, the housekeeper, as a. lady of rank,who
had most important intelligent e for Mr. Carden,
respecting a matter in which he was deeply inte-
rested, and she appeared greatl-- 7 disappointed at
Mr. Carden's absence. Mrs. O'Doi iohoe invited her
to tea, and offered her a bed, whicl i she graciously
accepted, and on Sunday the phaet in was placed at
her disposal, and she was drive, a into town and
again went to the hotel, where, the afternoon,
she was visited by a gallant captain L„ who, if report
be true, opened his purse and gay ° a supply of
money with which to pay her hotel b i 11; but having
soon after gone out for a walk, and. not returning
until a late hour, the hotelkeeper's sat spicions were
aroused, and she determined to get rid of her visitor
as soon as she could. Next day Miss R ughes ordered
a car, and drove oat once more to Bs mane, where
she took up her abode for the night, but not alto-
gether to the satisfaction of either b,c 'usekeeper or
butler, for they took the precaution 1-1) lock her up
in her bedroom, and to carefully lock and bar every
door in the house; and next morning, ; is Miss Hughes
and the housekeeper were sitting o.orafortably at
breakfast, the former became greatly 'Alarmed when
it was announced by an attendant t hat the super-
intendent of the railway police wish e d to speak to
her with reference to unpaid railwiz,y fares. He
was at once ushered into the breakfa St parlour, and
Miss Hughes was shown in her true colour to the
housekeeper, who instantly despatohed her on a
car to Templemore, and a warrant being in the
hands of the police, she was committed to Bridewell
by Mr. Gore Jones, R.M., for fraud rwnd imposition.
She was brought up at the petty sessions on
Wednesday, the 9th inst., when tb.e magistrates,
acting on the evidence of several rr iilway officers,
who had charged her with defrauding the railway,
she was sentenced to pay a fine of 1:2, and in de-
fault of payment, to be imprisoned fox the period of
two months in Nenagh gaol.
The denouement of this affair has excited con-
siderable amusement in the neighbourhood of
Templemore and Thurles, at the expense of those
upon whom she so successfully practised.