Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-01-18

on he lived as duke officially at We'll
beck. and though be remained a
recluse until 1919 there is no reason to
suppose that he carried on another life
elsewhere. He appears to have. occu-
pied himself, perhaps with a view to
insuring cOncealment, with those enOr-
nous underground works which are
the chief object of interest to all Wis
itors at Welbeck abbey
The suggestion of the present claim
ant is that his grandfather, Thomas
Charles Druce lived a life with &C.
centric gaps corresponding with the
most minute fidelity with the known
vagaries of the duke. He attempts to
establish the identity of the two men
by witnesses with whom l cannot deal
in the limits of this article. Old Druce
the claimants grandfather, appeared
first in 1916 as sutton to an heiress
of great beauty in Bury ST. Edmunds.
This lady, Miss Crickmer, he married,
and for four years they resided togeth-
er and had family of two children.
After four years, having dissipated her
fortune and being tired Of a diapers
shop, he disappeared, leaving her and
her children in penury.
This is supposed to be the time when
the duke returned to the turf, and in
1885, when he again disappeared, hav-
ing acquired a considerable sum of
money, l. G. bruce revives and appears
in London. He will have nothing to do
Is
her an allowance, but he provides for
his son and daughter and starts Il new
life of commerce. Having disappeared
without a penny i'll 1920, bruce has
E1O0000, with which he opens the
Baker street bazaar and develops it
into a successful commercial enter
prise.
The years 1854 to 1864 are the most
interesting i'll the history of old bruce,
as they are in that Of the duke. There
is the same tale of his unapproacha-
BILE demeanOr, OF mysterious disappear
ances. OF elaborate DISCUSSES and very
untradesmanlike luxury. After the
death of his second wife he married
again, this time an Annie May, sup
posed to be the Annie May Berkeley
mentioned above. with whom he had
been living for years. BY her he had
one illegitimate and one legitimate son.
Herbert Druce. Finally he died in
1864, leaving his very considerable
property to the second family.
The present claimant, George Hol-
lamby Druce the eldest son of the eld-
est son of the first marriage, attempts
to prove that the supposed death of J..
C. bruce in 1864 was a fictitious cere-
mony, employed by the late Duke Of
Portland TO escape from the embar-
easements of his double life and ac-
guessed in by his second family ow-
ing to the bride of the large property
devolving by will in the shape of the
Baker street bazaar. The whole cues
ton turns on the situation inside the
bruce vault at Highgate as to whether
the coffin there contains a body or a
roll of lead.
Litigation thus far has been carried
on by a company which speculates on
the value of the bruce claims to prop
erty supposed to be worth G16,000,-
900. An order was obtained from a
civil court to search the grave, but this
order was resisted by Herbert bruce
as legal heir, and no power exists in
England TO compel disturbance of a
grave except in cases where criminal
issues are inv Olved.
This is the origin of the present pro-
ceedings, which are carried forward
from Friday to Friday and may last
for weeks. The plaintiff is bringing a
charge of perjury against Herbert
Druce with the hope that If he can
establish a prima facie argument for
further investigation the magistrate
will order the opening of the vault. 1t
is a Skillful conversion of a civil issue
into a criminal one. At present the
fresh evidence brought forward by the
prosecution is not very convincing, but
there seems so much genuine doubt as
to the chief facts in dispute that there
is some considerable part of the public
hoping that the mystery will be finally
settled by an order to investigate the
condition of the grave. The case for