Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1878-12-20
" A Terrible Temptation"

The story of Lady Gooch, the wife of
an English Baronet, who has been COM
mitted for trial upon the charge of
plotting to palm off upon her husband
as an heir a child taken from an Infant
Home, is not without precedent in any
part of the world, but the clumsy infat-
uatiOn with which this unhappy lady
attempted to carry out her design is so
singular as to give color to the charita-
BILE suggestion that she may be mad.
Her husband refused to believe what
she said about her condition, her physi-
clans told her that she was mistaken,
and her very housekeeper went about
contradicting the good tidings of a
coming heir which she spread among
the tenantry. Yet she took this very
housekeeper with her up to London,
avowed to her a determination to pro-
duce a supposititious child, bought
baby linen in her company, and even
took her with her to the Infant Home
to hire a child and nurse! Perhaps
there never was sillier attempt at car
rying out such a plot than the mock
confinement in public hotel which re-
suited in the arrest of Lady Gooch
within forty-eight hours. The rude of
ficers of the Court, summoned on infor-
nation furnished by the confdentisl at
tendant, broke in upon the tableau of
her maternal felicity with less delay
and ceremony than was shown by the
then District Attorney of New York in
the famous case of Mrs. Cunningham
Burdell and her "bogus baby" The
utter faulty of the whole business in
the case of Lady Gooch is so palpable
that one cannot help suspecting there
must be something in the story not yet
made public. 1t is difficult to regard
such silly woman as the architect of
plot, but it is not difficult to regard
her as the possible victim of the
contrivances of shrewder schem-
ers. A king of England once found
it no easy task to prove that true son
really born to him was not a false
Prince fetched into the palace in a
warming pan. Grave historians have
insisted in our own times that the pub
lie scepticism on the subject was eX-
cusable because those nearest to the
succession were not officially repre-
sented at the accouchement. In spite
of the number of people who were pres
ent at the birth of the son of James the
Second the unwilling nation refused to
accept him as an authentic scion of the
House of Stuart. Naturally enough,
therefore, poor little Lady Gooch broke
down in trying to impose fictitious
child on her brother-in-law and her sis
ter-in-law, both of them deeply inter
estcd in the non-existence of such a
child. The prospect of an inheritance,
whether it be of a kingdom or of f25,-
600, is thing TO make people very par
ticular about the purity of the family
succession. If the conduct of Lady
Gooch exemplifies criminal purpose
gone astray for want of criminal ability
the conduct of her housekeeper, Mis-;
Gerrod, is a notable illustration oi
treacherous cunning working cautious
ly to its end. The testimony of thi:
amiable person represents her owr
course as beyond all praise for its in
tegrity and candor. She saws she wa:
always dissuading Lady Gooch from
the prosecution of her scheme and al
ways refusing to cooperate with her in
carrying it out; yet she was certainly
treated by the unfortunate woman a:
an ally from the beginning to the end
The cross-examinatiOn of Miss GerroC
ought to he interesting. Outside of the
sensational novel it would be hard tC
find better picture of the domestic spy
than her own portrait of herself. Sh(
was the detective of the husband anC
the next of kin while taking the wages
and sharing the confidence of her mis-
tress, and Kept them advised of every
movement in Lady Gooch's silly enter
prise.-M. Y. World.