The Morning News

The story published the other day, says the New York Tribune, about a valuable piece of Irish lace which recently came into the possession of Mrs. Augustus G. Payne, has created much interest among collectors and lovers of fine laces. Mrs. Charles Rohde, of the Hotel Pomeroy, has a lace shawl which has been in her possession for the last twelve years, the existence of which she had nearly forgotten. When Mrs. Rohde read the story of Mrs. Payne's lace she took the shawl from the safe where it has lain all these years, and, on examining it closely, found it to correspond perfectly in pattern with the description given of Mrs. Payne's flounce, and she is fully convinced that it is a part of the set to which the flounce belonged.

The history of the lace flounce is that it was made by the peasant girls for the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851, where it won the £25 prize offered by Queen Victoria. It was valued at $5,000. It was bought by Senator Miner Botts of Virginia, who brought it to this country and gave it to Julia Deane as a wedding gift at the time of her marriage to Robert Y. Hayne. It came to Mrs. Payne through the Coopers, who are relatives of Julia Deane Hayne.

"You know," said Mrs. Rohde to a Tribune reporter, "there were several pieces of lace belonging to the set which took the Queen Victoria prize of £25. Besides the flounce, which has just come into the possession of Mrs. Augustus G. Payne, there was a deep collarette, bretelles and a double shawl six feet and a half square, having the same beautiful pattern of the shamrock, the rose and the thistle exquisitely woven and joined together by meshes of cobweb fineness. I fully believe that I own the shawl. I will tell you how I got it.

"About twelve years ago there was an English woman stopping in my hotel—a woman of refinement and culture, and who appeared to be possessed of plenty of means—that is, if one may judge from dress and jewels. She remained until her bill amounted to several hundred dollars. When it was presented to her she could not pay it, but told me she had a very valuable lace shawl, which belonged to the set of Irish lace which took the Victoria prize at the Crystal Palace exhibition in 1851. I took it to several of the first lace dealers and lace experts in town, and they all said it was worth at the least valuation $1,000. I tried to sell it, but failing I put it into the safe, where it has lain ever since. If it proves on comparison to be a part of that famous prize set I would not sell it for anything."