Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1913 — CARGO OF WIDOWS [ARTICLE]

CARGO OF WIDOWS

Three Score In World Tour Due Soon at Frisco. .. 1 a • 1 - Amusement Is the Primary Object of the Present Voyage, In Which a Few Bachelors Are Participating.. 'Berlin. —In a few days the "Boat of Ye Merry Widows” will sail into the port of San Francisco and deposit upon American soil fifty-seven husbandless women of various ages and positions, together with thirty bachelors of happy tendencies who are around the world. This astonishing globe-circling trip was started at New York, where the fifty-seven varieties of widows took ship and started eastward around the world last October, with only one object In view—amusement, in capital letters. And there is every indication that the purpose of the trip is being accomplished, judging by private letters which have just been published in the Berlin Lokal Anzeiger. Flirting seems the principal occupation on board the Cleveland, which is the official name of the vessel carrying this strange eargo. The most of the “merry widows” are Americans, with only a sprinkling of Germans and French. The bachelors Include every nationality. According to the writer of a letter which is dated on board the Cleveland, the widows are having the gayest time of their lives. Of course the men of the party laid siege to the hearts of the “merry widows” the moment the boat pulled out of the little French port. First'came the young ones.

All the way across to Egypt, young widows were kept busy warding oil proposals and the heavy cannonade of experienced flirting, but when the Red Sea was reached, where the exuberant spirits of the bachelors became somewhat affected by the 'warm weather, the reserves, had to be called out from among the "beautiful women of a, certain age," whose more intellectual conversation and better appreciation seemed to revive the waning spirits Of the men.

In tropical regions. Anally even matrons with white hair assumed an active part in this nautical drama. The younger widows, however, remained the queens of the voyage. ■ "Why?” asked the writer of the letter. “Why are there so many cozy corners on transatlantic liners invit-

Ing tete-a-j.etes and confidences, and why, why. above all things, are there such wonderful moonlight nights, such sublime sunsets that they inspire .tender feelings?” “ The letter says: z “On the ‘widow ship’ the Americans always are contented. They don’t kick, as do Europeans, at every little thing. Furthermore, they drink enormous quantities of ice water, which is incompatible with the average European constitution. They wager from morning till night, and applaud enthusiastically when the band plays an

American air. Young and old dance at all hours of the day or night in the grillroom or on deck; waltzes and two-steps, but mostly turkey trots and grizzly bears, while the Germans, sit in deck chairs and write in diaries. "There are beautiful California women with their peach complexions, the tall and graceful women from Chicago and the gay and vivacious women of New York and Philadelphia. The most interesting feature of it ail is the chivalry of the American men and the high esteem of women which they show in every action.”