'Wo have been greatly excited this week over a ''sham burial' case. Some days ago a Mrs. Druce obtained a provisional order for the opening of her father-in-law's vault in Highgate cemetery. Her contention was that the late Mr. Druce was not dead at the time when his supposed funeral took place—that for some purpose of deceit from which her son was the ultimate sufferer a coffin filled with Jond was placed in the vault and Mr. Druce went into hiding under an assumed name. He was subsequently confined in-an asylum, she said, under the name of Dr. Harmer. So much éf the story was told in Court; but to newspaper interviewers Mrs. Druce told a far more interesting tale. Her father-in-law, she said, though he sometimes passed as Mr. Druce and sometimes as Dr. Harmer, was in reality the fifth Duke of Portland—the eccentric nobleman who built the subtertaneous apartments at Welbeck, and of whom so many strange stories are told. And his wife was a daughter of the fifth Earl of Berkeley, whos" romance may be found in the pages of Burke. Mrs. Druce further hinted that the Duke's reason for livingunderanassumed name wasthnthe had murdered his brother, Lord George Bentinck, whose sudden death in 1848 created some sensation at the time. The story filled pages in the Sunday papers, and unthinking people bogan to anticipate another Law Court romance which should rival in interest the Tichborne case. Buta little investigation has confirmed the impression which the first bare outline of the story made on the minds of most reasonable people. It is the tale of a mad woman, fall of inconsistencies and absurdities. Pre-pesterous claims of this sort are familiar enough to lawyers; and the only really remarkable fact about the present case is that Dr. Tristram should have allowed himself to be persuaded into issuing a faculty for the opening of the grave. Mrs. Druce's son, whom she avers to be the trae Duke of Portland, is in Australin, and there is nothing to show that he is any party to the claim made on his behalf.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.