Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-12-25
The British Minister.
Washington special to the New York wor

Washington special to the New York World
Washington official society is now being
| much exercised in its mind over q grave
! social question which will probably lead te
what may be called AN international epi.
sode," at least as interesting as the issue
| raised in New York society some tirue age
by the advent of Mile Sarah Bernhardt.
The question in this case is not ''ought we
to visit her, but ''ought we to visit him, II
and as the individual directly concerned is
no less person than the new minister OF
| Great r'tain to the United States, to whose
arrival the gay world of Washington had
looked forward as the harbinger of season
Of unrivalled festivities at the new and hand
some house of the legation, it may be easily
imagined that the question is fast taking
precedence for the time at dinner-tables aud
boudoi-s of the gravest political subjects,
The facts are simple enongh The new
British minister, the Hon. Lionel Sackville-
West, is younger brother of the present
Earl Delaware. In virtue of his descent
from Lord Delaware, governor and captain
general of Virginia, who died in that prov
ince in 1913 and to whom Delaware and the
Delaware River owe their name. Mr.
West, it viii remembered, was invited
by the Pennsylvania Steamship Company
of the company's steamers and was re-
ceived with much efiusion and enthusiasm
by the amiable Philadelphians on his ar
rival. He is a brother also of the Coun-
tess of Derby and of the present Ouch
ess of Bedford Few men in England
come of so ancient a stock, and no man in
England is more highly connected. He is
man of ability also, and has served with
credit IN the diplomatic service Why,
then, this question ''Ought we to visit
him 20 Well, any one who will take trouble
to look at record of the house of Delaware
in the Engishman's Bible will see that Air.
Lionel, Sackville- West, born in July, 1927,
therefore but little turned of fifty -four, is
bachelor. And yet it appears to be an
unquestioned fact that Mr.. Sackv:Ee- West
has family of children, two at least o.
whom it is understood he wishes should live
with him, and it is an open seer
that lady of American origin,
long connected with the Span
ish court, was at some palms. before Mr..
Srckville-West came from the British lega-
ton at Madlid to this country, to assure her
numerous correspondents in this city that
the connection, now of some years
date, of the British minister with Spanish
actress had caused much scandal and led to
a number of social unpleasantness at the
Spanish capital, Notwithstanding the some
what liberal reputation in such matters of
the city which so long acknowledged the
sway of the Regent Queen Christina and of
The regnant Queen Isabella. People who
remember the unchallenged despotism
welded over Washington by the late
Thaddeus Stevens may naturally ask why
official society at Washington should con-
Germ itself with the domestic relations of
foreign minister. But it must be remem-
bered that Thaddeus Stevens no longer
lives, and that Washington society, on at
least two comparatively recent occasions,
has taken very decided ground as to the So
cial relations it would maintain with the
wives of two foreign ministers concerning
who it was alleged that their matrimonial
experiences had been more romantic than
regular; and, ell precedents apart, it must
be admitted that it cannot fail to be awk-
ward for heads of families to explain to
their families how a foreign minister can be
at once bachelor and the head of family.