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Asheville, N.C. -  After standing unclaimed for seven years in embalmed solitude, dressed in full evening dress, with silk hat and cane, the mummified body of Sidney Lascelles, alias "Lord Douglas," alias "Lord Beresford," alias Charles J. Asquith, is on its way to Washington, D.C. consigned to Dr. McPherson Chrichton, presumably to be buried in crematory at that City. The body was claimed and identified by a Mrs. J.T. Summerfield of New Jersey who said that she was the sister-in-law of the deceased"s first wife, now living in Baltimore. She made affidavit to the effect and by her order the mummified body was shipped to Washington.

The departure of the "petrified lord," whose body has twice been identified as that of Sidney Lascelles, noted forger, swindler and bigamist, writes "finis" to a tale of crime and deception in high life, which opened in Australia, shifted to the ranks of nobility in England, and closed in a cheap lodging house in this city. He was lionized in London after securing an introduction to the American ambassador under the name of Beresford, posing as a cousin of the powerful English house of that name. In America the highest circles of society did homage to the bogus lord.

At Rome, Georgia; Fitzgerald, Georgia; Norfolk, Virginia, and other cities, wherever he went, Lascelles formed matrimonial alliances with the daughters of the rich, only to leave them in the course of a week, poorer in purse, but richer in experience. As Lascelles passed through Mexico and Texas, he left a trail of weeping brides, and he was apparently rolling in wealth when justice overtook him.

He was convicted at Rome, Georgia, of promoting fraudulent schemes, and sentenced to six years hard labor. He lost his appeals in the Supreme Court of Georgia and in the United States Circuit Court, and served his term. He came to Ashville from Norfolk, Virginia, eight years ago, suffering from tuberculosis, and died in 1903. There being no claimants for his body, it was embalmed by local undertakers. The body became almost petrified, losing but little of its lifelike appearance.

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