Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-08-13
AN AMERICAN ADVENTURES.

Inc case OF VllDerIOrce against fnlip,
which has been a source of so much enter
tainment during the past week, has sud-
denly and ignominiously collapsed. Yes
terday morning the plaintiffs counsel, after
once or twice seeming to waver, announced
that in consequence of a letter just received
from America he felt himself obliged to
withdraw from the case. There is natural
inclination to read scandal that is not too
scandalous, and as this case comes under
that description, we are probably right in
assuming that Miss Wilberforce's recent
history is by this time familiar to most of
our readers. We may then content our
selves with bare summary of the story,
which certainly entities the plaintiff to a
respectable place IN the gallery of cele-
brated adventuresses. She is first intro.
duced to us as clever and attractive-look.
ing person, able at least to pass as five-and.
twenty, and endowed with considerable
powers of fascination. She falls in with
and captivates an old gentleman of rs, a
doctor who has retired from a large prac-
tice, and who is therefore presumably rich.
Whether he actually wishes to marry or
not is not proven, but it is certain that,
after short time, she takes her position
in his house as his adopted daughter with
the assent of his family. This was in
July, 1879, and before many months had
elapsed she appears to have aroused the
suspicious of DR.. Philips son, the defend
ant in the action, who then begins to SIAN
der her to his father-or, as the jury have
found, to open his eyes to the real nature
of the person who had infatuated him.
With the assistance of the Charity Organ.
San.at1- lo 4 la L.
impostor that she is not Wilberforce at
all that her story is full of contradictions,
and, in word, that she is by no means the
sort of person in whose charge to leave
defenseless old man. The adopted daugh-
ter, however, does not mean to yield with
out struggle. In November, 1879, the
action is begun, while she is still under
DR.. Philips roof; in July, 1880, he is per-
suaded by his son to forbid her the house ;
and now at length the case comes before
judge and jury. The plaintiffs career, ac-
cording to her own showing, has been
eventful enough. The daughter of an
American army surgeon. who did good
service, either in the civil war in 1862, or
in the war unknown to historians)
"between the United States and Mexico,
in 1872 she is not sure which-she
has an inherited taste for relieving the
suiferings of the wounded. She is at the
siege of Paris, and she is afterward at
Plevna, which she leaves under the charge
of DR.. Sandwich, who never was at Plevna,
but who as she we'll knows, is no longer
alive to refute this portion of her story.
Returning to England, she engages in the
congenial task of collecting money for the
victims of the war, but here the Charity
Organization Society, jealous, as she would
have us believe, of her as a rival in the re-
lief OF distress, begins course of persecu-
ton which discredits her and her fund. It
is at this moment that Providence sends
DR.. Philip, and her happy life with him
begins. But again the conspiracies of her
Philip, the defendant, after period of cor
character. TO illustrate these copy of a
curious document is produced, but all of
them are copies, the originals having been
either accidentally burned or deposited
with the trustee in distant Indianapolis
The document in question is the supposed
letter of an American detective, engaged
by Captain Philip to get up the case against
the plaintiff, aud it is to be classed with
other documents long letter from the
hypothetical trustee, guarantee Of the
costs of the suit from DR.. Philip and tes-
timonial from the American Consul at Mar
seIlleg-as group of papers the like of
which is seldom seen in a Court of law.
1t appears that Mss Mabel Wilberforce,
ranging the world in search OF trustee,
went curiously near the mark, but did not
quite hit it. There had been gentleman
of the name of Perry Morton living in In
diana, and occupying Though she does not
seem to have been aware of it, the high
position of the Governor of the State and
United States Senator but, unfortunately,
he died in 1877. 1t is the letter of his be-
wildered but quite unsuspicious son to the
plaintiffs solicitor that has altered the
whole complexion of the case, and led Mr.
Murphy and his Juniors to see that they
could have nothing more to do with it.
Wewill not pronounce an opinion on the
vexed question of this lady's age, but
whether it be q or 40 it is evident that
she has had some considerable experience
of life, and, in her strange sphere of action,
has secured some successes. The wonder,
then, is that she should have embarked on
such foolish adventure as this last. She
had had free quarters for a year with DR..
Philip; she was leaving him with parting
gift of ESQ; the charges against her were
not to be proceeded with. What more
could she desire? The world was all before
her, and plenty of old gentlemen remained
on whom she might have tried her filial
destinations. But the letter from Indian.
onn1,a hos r,oat