Connecticut western news., 1872-04-19
An English Story.

At her Majesty s, Queen Victoria's draw ing-room, 1868, one of the most elegant ladies presented to the Queen was Lady Twiss, bride of the Queens Advocate Sir Travers Twiss, and understood to be the daughter of an eminent general of Saxony, where her husband had recently married her. Again, six years later in 1869, the same lady attended royal drawing-room, so that in the interval she must have re- mained unimpeached in her social dignity. Indeed, it was not until the spring of last year that rumors began circulating at the clubs and among lawyers respecting cer- tain strange stories of the early life of Lady Twiss, which an old and nominally respectable solicitor named Alexander Chafins was said to tell with unqualified boldness. Not only did Chaffins tell these stories to all who chose to question him on the subject, but he repeated them far and wide with an evidently ma]evolent intention, and finally took the trouble to warn the Queen against receiving Lady Twiss again by sending written copy of his accusations in detail to the Lord Cham berlain. English cable news of recent date showed Sir Travers breaking his strangely protracted forbearance at last by causing
 
 wife on charge of malicious slander; but, alas, in day or two thereafter came the report that,at his preliminary examination, Chaffin's revelations had been of such a sustained and damaging character as to induce hasty discontinuation of the prosecution. The next word was that the lady had hurriedly left London, and prob ably England; and the next that her hus- band had resigned his office of Queens advocate and retired heart broken to some obscure refuge. From the affidavit of the man who has wrought all this sudden and hopeless ruin it appears that Lady Twiss was known to the dissipated younger London of dozen years ago as foreign adventures. under the name, real or as- sumed, of Maria Gelas Haffins. In com- pany with equally suspicious members of her own sex it was her custom to frequent Cremorne Gardens, the Uolborn Casino, the music halls in the Haymarket, the Ar gyle Rooms and other resorts of low caste, where she danced in the most ex- travagant French style, banded epithets with the rabble, and sometimes drank. It was in 1859 that Chafins became ac- quainted with her, and soon thereafter he learned that Travis Twiss, a rising lawyer had fallen into her tolls. From this last event the elder lawyer seems to have seer little more of Maria, and it may be inferr red that malignant jealousy actuated hin thenceforth toward both herself and hel new friend. The feeling of Twiss mus
 have been of the strongest and most devo ted kind; for, after an acquaintance o three years with the woman, he boldly determined to crown his work of reclaim ation by making her his wife. Apparently
 however, he had not the courage to d.
 this in frank, manly way, but deter mined to practice fraud upon society
 At his instigation Maria went to Dresden in March of 1862, and there, assuming t.
 be the daughter of Saxon general in tn German army, adopted the appearance } suitable to her supposed social station. Il l the August following, Sir Travers, nov risen to considerable dignity at court an 3 in his profession, appeared at the Saxo
 capital, and was there married to the ob
 ject of his cEivalrous affection at the Brit ish legation. In the following year, a
 has been shown, the bride was presente , to the Queen, and for several years there , after the world knew nothing of the skel eton in the household of the Queens ad
 vocate; but there is now reason to believ that soon after the marriage Chafins ap . preached Sir Travers with threats of tn stories he could tell of My Lady's past, un , less paid to remain silent; and it is eul , rently reported that he did exact varieu
 sums, until the victim whom he was tol ) turing refused to pay more.