Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-10-01
FOR A BRooKL1N BOY.

Ashmead bartlett Coutts and HIS mar
rage to u Phiianthropic Old Lady.
From, the New York World.
Among the peers to be created by Queen
Victoria before parliament meets again is
Brooklyn boy, born of American parents
and descended on paternal and maternal
side from the original Puritan settlers IN
this country. 1t is not for any great serV-
ice to the state or to the English nation
that he is about to be elevated to the house
of lords and invested with the coronet ana
ermine-barred scarlet mantle, but merely
for having married a very philanthrop-c
elderly lady about half a century his senior.
The prospective peer is William Lehman
Ash,nead Bartlett, who was transformed
by license from the College Of Heralds into
William Lehman Ashnead Bartlett-Bur-
dett-Coutts after his marriage with the
venerable Baroness Burdett-Co It's he
was born il Brooklyn of father VINO was
reared at Plymouth, Mass, and has grad
uated from Amherst College; and OF a
mother who was daughter OF Jonn n.
Ashmead of Philadelphia, and a descendant
of William Pom. Young Bartlett and his
brother Ellis were educated in England,
and both were graduated from Oxford.
Ellis, the elder of the two, has sat in par
lament for the last fifteen years. and dur
ing the previous Salisbury administration
held one of the minor offices IN connection
with the admiralty. He has been left out
in the cold on the present occasion, parity
TO make way for Joseph Chamberlain son
Austin, and partly in consequence of do
nestle scandal in which he became in
volved. He has been consoled, however,
with a knighthood by virtue of which he
Is now SIR Ellis Bartlett
At the time when he was accorded this
honor it was like wise granted to Blundell
Maple, the millionaire retail furniture
dealer of that shabby-genteel district OF
L. H.Ntkn ,t,ny
1t IS amusing to relate that each of the
two new knights wrote letter to Lord
Salisbury protesting against the other
mans name being associated with his own
as tending to diminish the value of the
dignity.
NurseI by the Baroness.
William, the younger of the Bartlett
brothers, shortly after leaving Oxford OBJ
tanned employment as a delegate of COM
mittee formed by the Dukes of Sutherland
and Westminster and the Baroness Bur-
dett-Coutts for the relief of the sick and
wounded during the Turkish war with Rus
STA IN 1877. On his return he fell danger
ousle i'll from the effects of exposure and
the hardsh.ps which he had undergone in
the orient, was nursed back to health by
the baroness, who became SO infatuated
with her patient that she married him
about sixteen years ago. He was then
thirty. She Is six years older than Queen
Victoria.
Instead of the husband making any set
Element on the bride, is usually the case.
in this instance it was the reverse. Baron
ess Burdett-Coutts settled an annuity of
$25OOOO for life upon her young husband.
1t would be idle to deny that the match
gave rise to much popular dissatisfaction
and even downright hostility on the part
of many of the friends and relatives Of the
baroness.
She is a daughter of SIR Francis Burdett,
who played SO conspicuous a part in his
tory during the early part of the present
century. while her mother was the daughter
and he.ress of Thomas Coutts, the banker,
through wnom she has inherited the major
Icrtion OF her vast property. She is on in
innate terms with many of the foreign
royalties. and 1t is thanks to her interview
ton and assistance that the princes of the
house of Orleans were able to save, after
the revolution of 1913, much of their prop
erty, including the palace and estate of
ChantillE, from confiscat.on
1t IS considered likely that her husband
on being crea ted peer will assume the
title of Lord Latmer. that being one of the
baronies which formerly belonged to his
W.fe's family. He himself has, since his
marriage, been an active co-worker in
many of the phllanthrop:c schemes of the
baroness. and has done much to soften the
anfmosity with which he was at first re-
garded, and which led a man at a public
meeting in which he had denounced Mr.
Gladstone as nothing but an old woman"
to arse from his seat and to remark amid
universal applause that Mr. Ashmead-Bart-
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS was about the very la st
person IN the world who had either RIGHT or
reason to siur or sheer at IAN old woman. I"