Arizona republican., 1900-09-24
Late Gossip of
 Foreign Capitals

Sir Charles Lawes, who, through the death of Sir John Lawes. the famous agricultural chemist. succeeds to the baronetcy conferred upon his father in 1882. as well as to a very large fortune, is not only known to the public as very successful sculptor, but has like wise obtained considerable nOtoriety in connection with the Belt "cause cele- bre,'' which finally resulted in Belt be- ing condemned to a term of penal ser vitude for forgery.
 There were in rality three Belt trials, two civil and one criminal. The first was brought about by a rather sensa- tlonal paragraph which appeared in the London society paper, Vanity Fair" intimating that Mir. Richard Belt. who had recently quilted the studio of Mr. Lawes, and had set up as a sculptor on his own account was not in reality the maker of the statue of Dean Stanley. of the Byron monument. and of the me morial busts of Charles Kingsley and Canon Conway; that he was wholly in- capable of doing anything in the shape of artistic work, and that he was neith
 
 d statue jobber and an imposter.
 This article remained uncontradicted for several months until, when Belt sent in designs to the competition for a memorial advertised for by the cor poration of London, MT. Lawes wrote 10 the lord mayor, calling his attention to the statements in Vanity Fair" avowing himself the author thereof. and laying stress on the fact that they had never been contradictd. II was on- ly then that MT. Belt was forced by his friends to take the matter into court and bring a civil suit against MT. Lawes for damages.
 The trial lasted forty-five days, all the most eminent counsel CT the day being engaged in the case, the legal ex- penses of Belt being defrayed by a number of his followers and friends, mainly people of the so-called aesthet- ic cult, of which Oscar wilde was a bright particular star.
 The jury in the case was composed of London petty tradesmen, without the slightest knowledge of art, and when Belt modelled in their presence a bust which was declared by Lord Leighton, the president of the royal academy, himself an eminent sculptor; Sir John Millais, and the sculptor Thoryncroft. both of them members of the Royal Academy, to be utterly devoid of artis- tic merit, and manifestly fashioned by different hands to those which had pro- duced the statue of Dean Stanley and the Lord Byron memorial. they decided that Belt had proved himself to be sculptor. that he had been slandered. and returned a verdict in his favor of S25, ,0OO
 This verdict was upheld on appeal, in spite of the popular conviction and the certainty in all artistic circles that MT. Lawes was justified in his statements. and that i3el5 was really an imposter. Thereupon MT. Lawes. on the advice of his lawyer, Sir Geo. Lewis. resorted to the bankruptcy court. and having no fortune of his own, save the income which he derived from his work as a sculptor, he readily obtained a dis charge of all his debts, including the S25.000 damages to Belt and the latter's legal costs. for which he had become ii- able.
 A few months later Belt was arrest ed and tried at the Central criminal court on charges of having obtained by fraud and by forgery sums to the amount Of S4O,0O0 from a baronet by the name of Sir William Abdy. One of the principal witnesses against Belt was an Austrian lady of the name of Pe- trItzka, whom Sir William Abdy after ward married, much to his subsequent regret sine he was obliged to separate from her and has had lawsuits with her without end. The frauds practiced on Sir William Abdy by Belt were of the most gross and shameful descrip- ton, and it was universally felt that Belt had got his deserts when he was sentenced to a long term of penal ser vitude.
 So much fun has been made at vari- ous times about the title of Swiss ad- mirdl. which, like the Swiss navy. has until nOw 5ssn regarded as only existing in comic opera and in the ina agination of such composers as Offenbach that it may be as well to state that the we'll known Swiss historian. De Hailer, has just published a work entitled "The Berae Navy on the Lake Leman," which proves that in the sixteenth cen tury the-republic of BeIne, having ac-