The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-03-20
HISTORICAL.
A Talented and Eccentric Woman-Traveler,
Writer, and Partisan.

Talented and Eccentric Woman-Traveler,
Writer and Partisan.
1ady Florence Dixie is Une or tTe most
talented and eccentric women of the age
and has won notoriety and some fame as a
traveller in wild and almost unknown coun-
tries graphic writer, and strong partisan.
She comes of race distinguished for its
peculiarities, and is a sister of the present
Marquis of Queensberry, who electrified a
London theater and galvanized Tennyson's
last dramatic failure into temporary vitality
by getting up and denouncing the play from
his place in the stalls of the Globe Theater,
for which act he was put out OF the house by
the police.
Her mother was a daughter of General Sir
William Robert Clayton, who was popularly
| accused of showing the white feather at
Waterloo. Her father, the seventh MARQUIS
famous amateur boxer, gave his name TO a
pugilistic code of which New Workers have
heard a good deal lately. He was killed by
the accidental explosion of his own gun in
1858. His widow, after brief coquetry with
dissent, became a convert to Catholicism,
and espoused with SO much warmth the
cause of the National party in Ireland that
she sent liberal donation to the wife of the
man who assassinated Talbot the Jealous
detective, an act which moved her son to
make gift of four times the amount to
Ialbots widow. The present Marquis of
Queensberry is president of the British
Secular Union and an avowed free-thinker
He lost his seat as a Scotch representative
peer in 1880 on account of his lack
of orthodoxy. Another of Lady
Florence Dixie's brothers, Lord Francis
Douglas was killed in the ascent of the Mat
terhoIn in 1865, an event which has Just been
commemorated in somewhat questionable
taste in a novel written by still another
brother, Lord James Douglas. A fourth
brother Lord Archibald Douglas, was recon-
ciled to the Church of Rome some years ago,
and has since devoted himself to the reclaina-
tion of street waits whom he educates in an
institution at Paddington, and establishes
either in trade or on new lands in America.
During his absence on a charitable mission
on this side of the Atlantic in November
last another sister, Lady Gertrude Douglas,
whom he had intrusted with the direction of
the orphanage, suddenly married tine head
baker, one of her brothers penniless pro-
teges of barely half her years, and is now
managing bakery with him in London.
Patrick Egan, on his arrival in New York
last week, was questioned on the subject of
Lady Dixie's charges, and made statement
as follows:
'In April, 1881, Richard Pigott wrote me
that he had been offered $500 by the castle
officials to publish statement in his paper,
the Irishman, alleging misappropriatlon of
Land-league funds. He said he needed
money, and threatened to accept the offer
unless l sent him 9300. OF course refused
and defied him to do his worst. Subse-
quently pamphlet, the manuscript of which
was in Pigotts handwriting, was set up in
type for Lady Florence Dixie. She became
frightened at the serious charges against the
leaders of the Land League, and gave orders
that the few copies printed should be
burned and the forms broken up. I Sc
cured one of the copies, and all
the charges made since by Lady
Florence Dixie are those then made in the
pamphlet. OF course they are utterly false,
n, M, accounts have been thoroughly audited
by John Diiiioi;i;, the Rey. Father sheehy and
Matthew Harris. Ne 1onnlainttss have ever
been made by the actual subscribers of the
Land,league fund. The balance of the fund
OH hand at the time of the national confer
ence in Dublin in October last was 93l 900
The amount was increased by some small
amounts received afterwards, and out of it
there has been sent to the Lord Mayor of
Dublin for the Mansion-house committee for