Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-11-10
The Curtain Falls on One Of LoRdOn's
strangest Dramas---The Seamy
Side OfLlfe in Vanity Fair,

London Correspondence of the New York
Herald.l
Lady Gooch, wife of Sir Francis
Gooch, well known in connection with
her attempt to palm of a spurious
child on her husband, is dead.
Thus ends the strange history which
startled London a year ago. Lady
Gooch has not died unpitied. Ever
since the December morning, when
the recorder Of London said that the
law did not care to deal With her or
Tense. and the grand jury refused to
find a true bill against her, public
opinion has been yeering in her favor,
and. while it could not justify, has yet
declined to condemn. English society
has come to believe that she was more
sinned against than SHINING. TO the
foreigner the case was mainly interest
ing for the light it threw on the deea-
dence of a very old English family.
The Goochs were not eRn0bied. but
for centuries they had been lords Of
Suffolk domain. had given judges
to the bench, generals to the army,
and bishops to the church.
Their founder had in 1921
been created lieutenant governor OF
Virginia, and il is said Of him that
neither inhabitants nor merchants
ever complained of his administration.
Sir Francis, the eighth baronct, sue
ceeded to the title and estates when
he Was barely ofagc. His brother had
suddenly died, leaving a young widow,
and from the position of a pennlless
younger son, he became at a bound
owner of Bcnacre Hall and a magnif-
cent rent-roll. His first step was to
marry Miss Annie Switzerland, to
whom he had for a year been engaged.
She was a country squire'S daughter,
pretty and lovable. For a while all
was happiness. Sir Francis bought
his younger brother a commission,
took his sister aud mother to live at
the Hall, and in the Summer Of 1873
Lady GOOch gave birth to q son. On
the same dag Lady Eleanor, the dow
aeer, married again. Then the heir
died. and the new-iOund happiness
gradually melted away. The young
baronet, believing that no other heir
could be born to him, estranged him
self from his wife. Somehow OF
other" said his advocate at the trial,
"her husbands love was gone-gone
with the little child that was laid in
its grave. She became possessed OF
one idea. Night and day she cherished
one dream. If she had another child
to take TO him another child
who she coula persuade him was
his own-then she might win
back the love that was lost" Sir
Francis went off for months on yacht-
ing expeditions his sisters had mar
ried; Lady Eleanor, who was once
more regarded as his heiress, treated
her with undisguised bitterness, and
she was left alone in the hall with Q
certain Miss Garrod, an elderly com.
panion, not unlike Miss Briggs Ia
VANITY Fair" In the morbid MOOD
thus engendered she first formed tn,
dea Of getting q child from the
Founding Hospital. She made it'll,
secret Of her intention. She asked
the aid of the meek Mias Garrod, o
the hospital matrons, Of various doc
tors at various seaside resorts, and
when they all refused, hired the ser
vices Of a com PASSIONATE nurse, VIII,
conveyed the baby at night into thu
Grosvenor Hotel. Next morning thu
deception was discovered, and he
husband, burning TO Gvenge hi
wounded family honor and yindicat
the claims of Lady Eleanor, sum
mond his half crazy wife into a polio
court. Everybody will remember tn
rest. The magistrate, feeling that hi
court was not q tribunal Tor the al
justment of private rights, cent Oh
case for trial, aud the grand jury a
expeditiously threw it out. But Lad
Gooch's life was ruined beyond re
demption, and in dying she has mad
the only expiation in her power.