The Indianapolis Journal

THE LIVINGSTONE-FLEMING SUIT.

So the notorious suit for seduction and breach of promise brought by a daughter of the family of Chancellor Livingstone against a disreputable but wealthy roue, is to be settled by compromise. Miss Mary Almont Livingstone, it will be remembered, obtained her full verdict of $75,000; partly because she made out so clean a case, and partly because the defendant, Henry Fleming, and his lawyers were so beastly in glorying in his vices and casting foul insinuations against Miss Livingstone and her family. I never met Miss Livingstone personally, but I used to see and hear much of her and her family at Tom's River, N. J., and I knew her uncle, "Tom" Placide, the famous actor, and certainly they all bore the highest reputation with all who knew them. When the case went against him, Fleming appealed it, and got a crowd of drunken stable-boys to promise to swear to a lot of scandalous stories about Miss Livingstone. But he soon got wind of the fact that his witnesses were so notoriously disreputable that their testimony would not be admitted in court. Then one of them got locked up for larceny or something. So Fleming suddenly took passage for Europe, and left his lawyers to settle up the case.

They have done so. They are to pay Miss Livingstone $50,000 in cash, and settle her lawyers' bills, which amount to $6,000 more. She says she will accept this, although she knows she would win the appeal and get the whole of $75,000 in the end, because she has a horror of publicity, and does not want to have to go into court and wade through all the dark details of the case again. Besides, the moral effect of the compromise is even greater than it would be if she won the second trial; and it is of more importance to her than the money, which she intends giving to some charities—probably dividing it between the Foundling Hospital and the Magdalen's Home.

Miss Livingstone is now living in retirement with her mother, and says she will not go into society again. But her friends stand by her, and she is frequently visited by many of the best people of the city. The report that she is soon to be married is without foundation.

I recently dined with a party of friends at the hotel where she was ruined by Fleming. It is one of the most popular restaurants in the city, being a large and handsome one, with excellent fare, and located in the heart of the fashionable shopping district. It was afternoon when I was there, and the place was thronged with ladies and gentlemen of the highest social standing. Yet, by handing the waiter a $5 bill, a guilty couple could be shown to a private "dining-saloon" up stairs—so slightly are virtue and vice divided in the great city.