Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1876 — Stolen Fortunes. [ARTICLE]

Stolen Fortunes.

Anna S. H., Washington correspondent of the Cleveland Leader, writes as follows of a leading light in Washington society: There came here early in the season a lady with her children and sister. Expensive apartments were taken at a hotel; carriages were recklessly ordered; two French nurses ministered to the wants es the two children. My lady wore splendid diamonds; her street costumes, her carriage and evening dresses, her India shawls and velvet mantles were the envy of all who beheld her, while the sister, advertised as a young, confiding girl, wore brilliant array. She became distressingly intimate with other young ladies in the house, and openly laid snares for varfous gentlemen. She vowed that the crimp in her hair was natural, that the bloom on her cheek was only that of health, and being rather bright she held her way triumphantly. “ Who are they!’’ passed from lip to lip. Somebody made answer. ‘ 1 They are from New YorK; Mr. will come after awhile,” and when the young lady was questioned she said: “We are from New York; except while I was at school I have lived at .the Fifth Avenue Hotel,” and society, dazzled with the glitter, accorded all the honor and dignity claimed. At length Mr. arrived; a great mass of flesh and stupidity, yet with a cunning look in his evil eyes. He dressed like a gentleman; he smoked and gave away expensive cigars, but rumors began to be rife concerning antecedents by no means creditable, and finally the story leaked out. In an interior town there lived a yenerahle old man with this one son. While the son grew to manhood, the estates grew valuable till the father was deemed enormously rich. It was a manufacturing district. Among the mill girls was one whose bright eyes attracted the stupid son of the miser and he married her greatly to his father’s wrath. The bride’s young sister was in direst poverty; the young husband placed her at school and the bride being really a smart girl won the old man’s liking. When the father died he left the son nearly a million in personal property. What more natural than the establishment of a bank ? The bank was opened; its great capital was well known and it promised to depositors a tempting amount of interest. Poor people brought their little boatings; mill girls and mill boys were eager to invest; widows deposited their all, seamstresses and school teachers flocked to snatch the alluring bait, and the bank went on swimmingly for—just one year. Then it failed, paying seven cents on a dollar, bringing to many a household utter ruin and poverty, but the President fled, and has since lived without any ostensible business as if he were Crcesus himself. This winter Washington has had the benefit of his lavish expenditure, while hundreds in that far-away town are suffering the direst penury to pa/for his magnificence. The story became so unpleasantly common that the party left, but society had smiled for them her sweetest welcomes, and Miss —— was paragraphed as an heiress! To what?