The San Francisco call., 1898-05-31
NEW WORKERS WERE
 DUPED BY ACTORS.
WIFE OF AN ENGLISH LORDS
 SON IN A NEW ROLE.
Mrs. Claude Barry Tells of the Rela- tions Between Her Husband
 and Mrs. Ethel Hertslet.

A highly sensational story was re
 gently published In the New York Journa
 and reproduced in its local adjunct tc
 the effect that MT. and Mrs. Claude
 Barry, members of the theatrical profes-
 sion, were starving to death in an East
 Side tenement in New York city. The
 immediate result of the publication in
 New York was that charitably disposed people came to the assistance of the un- fortunate couple, and soon the lady was
 offered engagements by no less than seven managers and the alleged husband
 was given position as accountant in some business house. Now while the starving to death item was doubtless true, 1t is not true that the two unfor- tunates were husband and wife, for the real wife is living in most straitened cir cumstances in this city, by reason of the duplicity of Claude Barry.
 In simple way yesterday Mrs. Edith Barry told the true facts of the case, which appear to have been much garbled in the publication named. Hers was a pathetic story, and it would seem that she and not the guilty couple is entitled to the charity which has been lavished on the wreckers of her life's happiness She briefly related her story, as follows
 My name is Mrs. Edith Barry and am the legitimate wife of the Claude Barry of the starving to death episode. The woman with him was formerly a Miss Ethel Barry, who some fifteen years ago married Gerald Spencer Hertslet the son of Sir Edward Hertset, at one time head of the Foreign Office in England. In loSo l came out to California as a com Panion to Mrs. Hertslet. Her husband had gone into farming in Lake County, but in his case 1t proved failure. fact widely published at the time. Claude Barry, second cousin of Mrs. Hertslet, came here from England also in 1887, and in 1888 he and l were married. We also titled the soil, but were equally as un- successful as the Hertslets.
 F1nally we all returned to San Fran cisco, Mir. Hertslet accepting an engage ment in the local theaters Mrs. Hertslet returned to England with her three chill her mother she came to this city and joined her husbands company, both be- ing more or less successful here and in the interior. Finally, on returning to this city. the Hertslets decided to Separate temporarily, though amicably as pros poets for them were not of the brightest, also agreed to live apart for various req sons. It was then that my troubles com menced, for Mrs. Hertslet and Claude Barry began to keep company. at first gether at all times often passing me In the street unrecognized. I suffered in si- lence for long while, until my husband brought suit for divorce from me.
 On my filing cross-compla1nt through Attorneys Knight and Heggerty, who had generously volunteered their services. my husband, now recognizing that 1 would fight him to the bitter end, one day dis from this city, and the next heard of him was the fact of his starv- ing to death in New York city, a fate he richly. deserved. With him was. his alleged wife, who is none other than Mrs. Hertslet. They are not married, for my husband and I have never been divorced and 1 will not allow him to get one. Ger aid Hertslet has sued for divorce from his wife on certain statutory grounds, put the case has not as yet come to trial. | So if is a seIf-evident fact that Claude | Barry and Ethel Hertslet are living to- sether in open criminality and the sym pathy of a charitable public has been | Through Claude Barry's | negligence I have been sick nigh unto | 1eath (having spent seven weeks in the with the barest necessities of | fife as my portion, and I can but bit .erly denounce the duplicity of a man | who had promised to care for me In life.' 1