The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-07

More About Medora Leigh-Hsr ne
lancholy Story and Her
Strange, Abnormal
Propensities."

sno pOoh iSseh naNlhg now come 10 hand, VIC lay
before our readers the essential portions of Ii.
Like Mrs. Stoves Atlantic article and her LADY
Byron Vfndicated," this volume is got up for
sale, and 1t is filed With vast amount of irrele
want matter that has no positive value. The
editor is DR.. Charles Mackay, well known as n
bitter British Copperhead, and the fact of Mrs.
Stowe being Northern woman and an aboli-
zionist is made the pretext for numerous sneers
at the loyal portion of the American people.
whom DIR. Mackay attempts to make Responsible
for Mrs stowe's indlscreton and bad taste More
than one-third of the book is a review OF her
Atlantic article, In which the editer goes over
the same ground, and not by any means in as
able manner, as most of the newspapers and
magazines of America and England; and another
third is taken up with a vindication of Lord
Byron and report of conversations with Lord
Byron in Greece by the gentleman who after
wards acted in behalf of Medora Leigh. All
this is pure padding, intended to swell the
volume to a salable size, and much of it is but
a repetition of what has been said again and
again. The matter of real importance is the
autobiography of Medora Leigh, the fourth
daughter of Lord Byron's sister, and the unfor-
tunate creature whom Mrs. Stowe designates as
the ''child of sin." This autobiography is intro.
duced as follows
In the summer of 1S43, twenty-seyen years
after the separation of Lord and Lady Byron
and nineteen years after the death of Lord
Byron at Hissolonghi there arrived in London
from Paris and the south of France, where she
had resided for some time previously, young
lady, with pretty little daughter, nine or ten
years old. The lady represented herself as the
fourth child of the Hon. Augusta Leigh, the
sister of Lord Byron. She was born, she said
in 1915, and was consequently in her twenty
eighth year. She was good-looking rather than
eminently handsome, had dark eyes and hair,
and dark complexion, and was altogether q
very lively and agreeable person: She was not,
however, in strong health; and, worst of all to
her at the moment she was without the means
of subsistence for herself and daughter the
little girl Marie, to whom she was passionately
attached, and whom she had brought with her
from Hyeres. She had come to England to urge
O. claim which she had, or fancied she had upon
the generosity and kind feeling of Lady Byron;
and her expenses from Paris to London had
been betrayed by Captain De B., gallant
veteran of the British army, who had served
through the Peninsular war in the list Regiment,
and had received several severe wounds at the
battle of Waterloo, for which he enjoyed pen
sion of G10O per apnum. This officer, who had
| long been resident in the South of France had
found Miss Leigh in Paris in a state of utter
| destitution, had heard her sad story, had re-
| lieved her to the extent his limited means al
lowed, and had betrayed the charges of her
return to England, in order that she might
| plead her cause in person with her wealthy and
| powerful relatives, and especially with Lady
Byron who had long treated her with
|
tenanee, but who had suddenly withdrawn
| her favor, and left her and her child to
perish of neglect and hunger. Captain De
| B Qhe officer just mentloned), in the course
| of business visit to his London correspond
ents incidentally mentioned, as q reason for re-
| quiring some more money than usual, the cir
| cumstances of his extra expenditure for Miss
| Leigh, whose parentage he stated, alleging her
| to be the daughter of Lord Byron and Mrs.
| Leigh. This strange statement, If only as an
apparent solution of the hitherto undivulged
cause of the separation of Lord and Lady
Byron, naturally excited great curiosity and in
terest in those who heard it, particularly la
one of the partners, who had spent some days in
Lord Byrons company in one of the Greek
islands, and he determined to inquire into the
truth of is. Miss Leigh proved to his entire
satisfaction, by documentary evidence in her
possession, that she was indeed the daughter of
the Hon. Augusta Legh detailed to him, and
tory of her unhappy life; and so deeply i'm
| pressed him in her favor that he took measures
without divulgng their object, to obtain conf
Dental access to some of the high personages
she might be reinstated in the high position
which She had formerly held in Lady Byron's
affections, and which she had strangely for
feited, without, as she knew, any fault OF her
own. She alleged Gas 1t satisfactorily appears
from other and corroboratory evidence, with
perfect TRUTH that her mother, Mrs. Leigh, and
her aunt, Lady Byron, had given her what is
called in legal parlance ''deed of appoint
ment'n by Which the sum of G3OOO was to be-
come payable TO her after the death OF these
ladies. She was in such dire distress, on the
very brink of starvation, dependent wholly upon
the pitying charity of an unwealthy officer
on whom she had no claim beyond that
of common humanity, that she desired to
sell her reversionary interest for whatever
sum, however moderate 1t might realize In
the market. She also claimed a box of valuable
family papers and letters which she had en-
trusted to Lady Byron's custody, but which was
said to have been stolen from Lady ByrOns
house in Moore Place, by French waiting
woman and her husband, valet or courier, who
had been employed by Lady Byron, in the days
when she and Miss Leigh were friends, to act as
her servants in the South of France. This man
being, as was believed, in possession of the box
and documents, attempted 10 eXtort money from
Lady Byron ,and from the Earl and Countess of
| Loyelace by threats of publishing the particu-
lars of Miss Leghs birth and parentage, which
| he thought would be painful to all the noble
families Interested in and related to the Bon.
Mrs. Leigh and her husband. The most active
of the two partners in the firm to whom Miss
| Leigh was introduced by their client-the most
active, at least, as far as this poor lady's case
| was concerned-was gentleman whom, for the
purposes of this narrative. we shall designate by
| the Initial letter of his name as Mr.. s.. The
| documents and papers on which this narrative is
founded came from his hands, and are published
by his consent and authority. The originals are
in the possession of the publishers OF this
volume, and will be shown to any one who has
any legal pretense to inspect them.
Then follows dissertation on the pedigree OF
the Byron family and the efforts made by the
friend of Medora to effect a reconciliation with
Lady Byron through her legal advisers.
Medora on her part wrote out and placed in the
| hands of Mr. s. all the circumstances of her