Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1869-11-03
From The Neia ,rh SIN.
Mrs. s.sWe.s nstrosity.
HE s1AspER o8rHE DEAD.

THE ISLANDER oR THE DEAD.
Lord Byron, the poet, was born, in
1873. He died in 1924 -forty-fve years
ago. In 1915 he. was married to Miss,
Mlbanke, from whom he separated for
eyer about one year after their mar
mage. She died in lS60-nine years ago.
Their daughter, and only child, died
several years earlier, but she left chil-.
dren, who are still living.
Forty-fve years after the death Of;
Lord Byron, and nine years after the
death Of Lady Byron, Mrs. Stowe, an
American woman, comes forward and
announces that she has an important
and interesting secret to disclose: that
the cause Of selstrangementand separa-
tion between Lord and Lady Byron was
an. adulterous, incestuous intercourse
between Lord Byron and his own sis
ter This fact Mrs Stowe says was
communicated to her by Lady Byron
in 1856.
Two questions arise in the mind of
the reader of this horrible announce
ment first, Is it true? and second,
Ctel 6on0 e-for what good end is it
made?
There seems to be no good and suffi-
cient reason for believing the statement
OF Mrs. Stowe to be true. Weswifl cred
it her assertion that Eady Byron made
it to her. According to laer. own ac-
count, Lady Byron was very i'll at the
time-so i'll that she was expected to
die soon. IF she was so i'll, she proba
bly>was taking medicines. Was she or
was she not under the influence of OPT
um, or of some anodyne that affected
her-reason Or it may be that under
the effects Of disease alone her mind
had given way She had suffered great
mental anguish about her separation
from her husband, and it is not improb-
able that she was insane on this, subject,
even if sane On all others.
By what evidence was the foul charge
of lady Byron supported? So far as
we can Judge by Mrs. Stoves article,
not by one little. And the public are
asked to believe this terrible accusation
on tn, merest hearsay testimony, which
in court of justice would be inadmis
sible to prove that an accused person
had stolen penny
1t is not Lord Byron alone whose re-
putaticn is affected by this dreadful
story. The fair fame of his sister-fair,
we believe, until -now-and who has
been permitted long to rest peacefully
in her grave-that, too, is to be blight
ed and blasted for ever hereafter, by
the stain of an unnatural crime.
1t is horrible that a woman of Mrs
Stoves standing should bring forward
this most repulsive charge against those
whose lips, being sealed in death, can
never answerit, however innocent they
may have been. And the strong pre-
sumption. from the laws of human na-
ture-so, strong as to be overcome on
ly by the most irrefragable evidence
is, that they were entirely innocent.
It is altogether probable that even if
Lady Byron was sane, and if she sus-
pected this incredible crime, the suspi-
cion was the offspring of a jealous and
morbid disposition. Whatever people
may have thought of Lady Byron here
tofore, no one hereafter can blame hus
band for loaying wife who hated him
bitterly enough to invent this. story
about him after he had been dead a
third of century. 1t seems, however,
according to Mrs Stowe, that the sepa-
ration was entirely the work of Lord
Byron, and that his divine and lovely
wife was very anxious to continue to
live with her adulterous and incestu-
Gus husband. To one who asked her
how she could loye him, she replied,
My dear, there was the angel in him. y
A pretty place, we should think, ac-
cording to her own story, for an angel
to dwell Then, too, Lady byron al
ways expressed the most undoubting
confidence, after his death, that this
same adulterops and incestuous fend
had gone straight to heaven!
Lord Byron's sister, we are told, in
her last sickness and dying hours, look
ed to Lady Byron for consolation and.
help. The woman who, under these
circumstances, could deliberately fasten
this vile blot on her memory many
years after her death, must have been,
if sane, moral monster.
Whose name Mrs Stowe has benefit
ed we are unable to perceive, Cor;ain
ly not Lady Byron's: for she had her
admirers before, and can have few left
now. Not the names Of the innocent
grand children, who must suffer cruel
torture from this scandal. Not her own,
which was tar before, but will hereaf
ter be associated with one Of the most
outrageous and vilest Of all the pruiient
stories ever invented
TIE BYRON ScANDAL.-Thc Courier
Journal has the following:
LONDON, August 1s-The Times in
an editorial to-day, ir which the sepa-
ration Of Lord. Byron and his wife is
detailed, asserts that Mrs. Stoves mar
ratiYe is entirely without foundation
and base slander.
The press of the country universally
condemn Mrs Stowe, and she stands
this day of all yirtuou, women the most
unenviably notorioss.
AUNT HARR1EF.-The Norfolk Tair-
gta,a calls Mrs Stowe Literary Body
Snatcher. She is likewise troofyt
loil woman. What an amalgam