Public Ledger

ENGLISH GOSSIP.
A Romance of the Peerage.
Out of the latest British social tragedy at Penge, of which a correspondent recently gave an account, the following curious history has come to light: "There lived at Brighton many years ago a fisherman named Suter or Souter. His cottage was a picture of neatness, and his garden was admired by the aristocratic visitors at that watering place. The chief attraction of his cottage was the presence of two handsome young girls—one a stepdaughter, called familiarly Nelly Holmes, and his own daughter, bearing of course his own name Suter. Nelly, the elder of the two, possessed a wonderful power in attracting the attentions of the other sex. She is said to have been witty, vivacious, refined and educated above her natural sphere of life. When her beauty was at its prime the Hon. Horace Pitt, considered to be the handsomest and fastest man in London, came down on a visit to Brighton. He, like the rest, admired the fisherman's daughter, and wearied perhaps of the artificial airs of the Court ladies, he wooed and married Nelly Holmes. It is said that when she married him she had no idea that he was the heir to a famous peerage. Lord Rivers, the father of her husband, fell into a delicate state of health, and Horace had by that time become wearied of his wife's free manners, and thought that she would be no ornament to the British peerage. He sought and obtained a divorce from her in the Scottish law courts, but he should have known that a Scottish decree had no validity in England. When Lord Rivers entered the house of lords he found there an appeal to his peers on the part of Nelly Holmes, demanding to be put in possession of all her rights and privileges as Lady Rivers. She won her suit, and frequently occupied her seat as the legitimate wife of Lord Rivers. At her death she willed away between £30,000 and £40,000 among her bequests was one of £3000 to her niece, Harriet Richardson. This is the £3000 so recently referred to before the coroner, in the case at Penge."
Harriet Richardson, afterward the late Mrs. Staunton, was one of three daughters of "Nelly Holmes" sister, Miss Suter, by her marriage with a private coachman named Richardson. One married Mr. Howard, and, in conjunction with a Mr. Boden, has endeavored to prove that she had a child who was heir to the earldom of Wicklow; another is Mrs. Casabianca. The three girls used to live near Windsor with their aunt, Lady Rivers, nee "Nelly Holmes," who was so well known as a daring rider to hounds. The late Mrs. Staunton was always regarded as somewhat wanting in shrewdness. The money which she possessed was derived from a legacy from her aunt, Lady Rivers, who divided her property between her sister and the daughters.