The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-06-25
49,, 4 A.. II II {,o,,,..a

the recent case of the widow Lyon against
the medium Home, but q fresher case now
pending in London-that Of Borrsdaile Us.
Rachel fathoms female faulty deeper than
ever previous plummet sounded. In both
cases the compliments were widows, and it
seems that the two together ought to giye,us
pause before ratifying what has become
almost a social axion,-that caution, of the
elder Weller against the wiles Of that be-
reaved but never-baffied class Of enemies
to human peace. At least it establishes
that with the judicial blindness with which
they are popularity supposed to visit their
victims, they themselves are sometimes also
smitten withal.I Let the public listen with
arrect ear and carefully perpend:
One Madam Rachel, o rather notable
quackess preying for some years upon Lon
don, advertises among other things cspa.
bility to repair the ravages of time upon
the features of the former fair, and the
hiatus between her promise and perform
ance in this regard has several times pre-
viously brought her within the perview Of
the police courts of London. Nevertheless
to her, sitting lonely in her parlor, like
the legendary spider, entered in May,
1864, Mrs. Mary Tucker Borradaile, as fly.
Mrs. Borradaile ia described by the London
reporter as being even now O lady about
fifty years of age, and wearing quantity
of reddish hair curled over her forehead"
so that it really fatigues the fancy to try to
depict what q miracle Of antiquity and un
comeliness she must have been before
undergoing the rejuvenations of Ra-
chel. What may have been the So
| cial standing of Mrs. Borradaile
does not appear, further than that she
was possessed of at least four thousand ster:
| ling pounds, since that amount was extract:
ed from her by the alchemy Of Rachel.'
Borrsdaile begged to be " beautifed," and
Rachel consented to 'sbeautify" for one
poor thousand of her pounds. Beautifed
is an i'll phrase" and even "a very vile
phrase" according to Polonius, but in the
view of Borradaile to be made again, or haply
for the first time, thing of beauty, was
such joy forever as was absurdly cheap
at the price. The pounds once guaranteed,
the sorceress Invested her subject, notlike the
Greek woman, of her very flesh and bones,
but only of her sartorial integuments, cast
| her, if not into the classic cauldron Of
Medea, into modern British bath-tub, and
left the thaumaturgic essences therein sup
| posed to be held in solution to work their
| own sweet will. This reveals idiocy on the
| part Of Borradaile, but it is idiocy which
| has been paralleled and may be yet again.
| What follows is unique. -
The pounds were paid, by faith the anx
ious eye of the widow could mark the pro-
gress Of her juvenescence, and the fateful
additions continued. But strong in her
conviction of the venerable verdancy and
the "vanity in years y" of her victim, the
insatiate humbug piled new device. Lord
Ranelagh, the widow was assured, had
fallen violently in love with her, ere yet
the process of regeneration was complete,
and implored on interview with intent to
marry. But how, inquired the widow, pal
pitating at the prospect Of peer, how had
his lordship, to whose lofty social circle she
was stranger, ever so much % seen her?
Marry, to her returned Rachel, he has seen
you in your-Oh, Borradaile, where is thy
blush lin your bath, through a crevice in
the wall. To the willing widow all this
seemed quite accordant to the fitness of
things, the British peer being VIGOROUSLY
in the habit of selecting the partner of
his existence on information conveyed
to him by friendly loop-holes in her
lavatory, and Lord Ranelagh in particular,
according to our vague impression, though
our knowledge of the British peerage is
sadly limited and Debrett is inaccessible,
being nobleman well stricken in years,
and so inspired by the experience of age,
as we'll as the conservative caution of his
order, with canny reluctance to pur-
chasing, 50 proverbially to put it, pig in
poke. After such course of inspection
of of
ought to have been entirely satisfactory,
the personator of the peer was introduced
to the waiting widow in these remark
able terms: "This is Lord Ranelagh, the
gentleman who loves you" From this
out we have the progress of the courtship
detailed partly by the female participant
in it, partly by the letters she received
from the male one. From these latter it APP
pears plain that whatever doubts in the mind
of the noble lord his sentinelship of the
lavatory had failed to remove, were dis
PEELED by the subsequent and, Of course,
ante-nuptial conduct of his idol. Concur
rently with his love-makings, and onjointly
with Rachel, he prosecuted systematic
siege of the purse of the defunct Bora
dale, like which the annals Of swindling
scarce offer another. Now, his lordship
needed money for his I" volunteers" and
now for the appeasement of his clamorous
creditors; once it was wardrobe that his
beloved needed to advance the money for,
and again it was diamonds for her trousseau,
until on one pretext and another IA 900
had been persuaded from her, and it seemed
that the earnings Of her late lord were
utterly exhausted. Then arose her t"de-
voted and loving William" and twitched
his mantle blue, and hied him to
fresh fields and pastures new. Then the
eyes of Mary were unsealed, and she de-
manded of Rachel with fearful clamors,
g my money or my clothes.'' But the weird
oman only commanded her in hollow
tones to 'ask her dear William for them"
Then comes the maddened Mary into court,
bankrupt and broken in purse, person, and
repute, with all her "sbout fifty +" sum- .
mers Yisibly engraven on her ancient front,
and her quantity of reddish hair curled
over her forehead, - and cries for justice,
justice, and revenge against those to whom
she has been these many months for prey
and for spoil. ss. .l. Ia. - 49,
Can the feeling British juror deny it to
her ?-NeaD York World. Il. n -