Staunton Spectator, And General Advertiser

DR. LARDNER & MRS. HEAVISIDE.

Among the passengers who have lately arrived in this country from Europe in the Atlantic steam packets, are the celebrated Dr. Lardner and Mrs. Heaviside, whose recent infamous conduct has rendered both notorious. The New York Evening Signal thus notices their appearance at the Theatre in that city.

Among the crowded and fashionable audience at the Park Theatre last evening were Dr. Dionysius Lardner and Mrs. Heaviside of infamous notoriety. They sat in a box in the second tier, occupying a front seat. Had the manager known of their presence among decent people, we presume they would have been politely requested to take their appropriate places up another pair of stairs.

The woman certainly possesses extraordinary beauty. In her features she bears a remarkable resemblance to Miss Ellen Tree--so remarkable, that the attention of many, who did not know who she was, was attracted towards her on that account. Her figure is tall and graceful, and has all that appearance of high breeding and hauteur in her looks and manner, which is said to distinguish the patrician beauties of England. She is just the woman fitted by her elegant bearing, expressive face, and symmetry of person to be the queen of the ball room, the cynosure of all eyes. We should judge that she had not yet reached the age of thirty.

Dr. Dionysius Lardner, the gay Lothario, the paramour of that debased woman, is a coarse-featured, vulgar, snuffy, badly dressed old fellow, apparently about sixty years old. He wears spectacles and a "shocking bad" wig. In his manners he is ill bred, and unattractive, and we are told that he speaks a broad Scotch accent. "What conjuration or what devlish magic" he employed to induce the wife of one of the most affluent and respectable gentlemen of England--the mother of four fine children--the leader of the haut ton of Brighton--to violate her sacred duties, to sacrifice the luxuries and indulgences of refined life, to cover herself with infamy for the sake of such a stale libel on humanity as he--is beyond our comprehension or that of anybody else.

The case is decidedly the most outrageous and extraordinary in the whole history of conjugal infidelity. Nor is it extraordinary because of the lady alone. Dr. Lardner has long occupied an honorable position among men of science. He derived a handsome income from the editorship of the Cyclopedia, which bears his name. But manners and worse looks were forgotten in the respect for those attainments, by which he had distinguished himself. He moved in the best society of London, and was one of the most prominent members of the first learned societies of Europe. Above all, he had arrived at years of discretion. The hey-day in his blood was tame. He was a philosopher, one in whom the passions were not likely to run riot. How could he sacrifice the advantage of his position, blast his good name, and make himself execrable forever by bringing dishonor upon an indulgent husband and a youthful family?

Unaccountable as Lardner's conduct may at first appear, the mystery is not wholly without a clue. Mr. Heaviside, upon his marriage, had settled twenty thousand pounds upon his wife. The Rev. Doctor has since manifested some uneasiness in regard to this settlement. When the guilty pair left Brighton, it seems they hastened to London, where they passed themselves off as Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and took passage the next morning in the steamboat for Ostend. They resorted to Paris, whither they were speedily followed by Mr. Heaviside. The indignant husband tracked them to their lodgings, and burst upon them as they were sitting down to breakfast. Lardner, on seeing him, exclaimed-- "Lord have mercy on me!" And well might he cry for mercy, for Heaviside seized him by the throat and inflicted upon him one of the severest scourgings that a poor devil ever received.

We commence to-day the publication of the trial of this venerable miscreant for the seduction of Mrs. Heaviside, from which it will be seen that the jury returned a verdict of eight thousand pounds damages. As the doctor is not worth a cent, the penalty is of course only nominal. Whether he has come to this country to evade the payment of this debt, or in the fallacious hope of escaping observation, we cannot say.