Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-04-20
Cupid on a Rampage Among the Shakers


From the Elizabethtown RyJ Banner.l :,
There is a religious society called
Shaking Quakers," composed of men,
women and children-the latter said to
be orphans gathered from the outside
world Of unbelievers. The Shakers
dwell in communities by themselves, and
are noted for their Industrious habits,
the neatness of their towns, and the
plainness of their attire of domestic
manufacture, the men wearing straight
breasted coats and broad-brimmed white
hais; the women wearing hoopless skirts
OF scanty proportions, with head-rig-
ging of plain hoods without the flowers
and fancy finery Of the Gentle women
of the land The most notable charac-
teristic of the Shakers is the vow of life
long celibacy which all who enter there
voluntarily take upon themselves. Ac-
cording TO their faith they neither marry
nor are given in marriage.
That sly, little winged divinity, Cupid,
so prone to throw himself in the way of
gallant youths and blushing maidens,
making, in countless instances, twain
hearts to be one flesh, " is excluded by the
inexorable laws of Shakerdom from fire.
quenting their villages, and interfering
with the felicities OF their terrestrial
paradise of single blessedness." But
the mischievous little elf lately caught
mapping the venerable bachelors and
antiquated maidens of Shakertown or
+ South Union," in Logan county, Ky.
One starry night Cupid slyly entered
the sacred precincts of the Shaker vii
lage, and by his pranks with two of the
celibates of that establishment has
brought TO grief the faithful bachelors
and steady maidens who linger there
Among the susceptible deuizens OF Sha-
kerdom, were Eugene La Hote, native
of the vine-clad hills of France, and
Katharine Jones, descendant Of the
renowned and respectable John Jones,
Esquire, who migrated TO this country
from merrie ould England in 1920, or
thereabouts, and is also remote kins-
woman of the Smiths and Browns of the
same classic land Cupid selected Eu-
gene and hatharine-modentely young
and rather comely in appearance, to try
his powers upon and whether they woke
or slept, whether hoing potatoes in the
field, picking berries in the garden,
shelling corn in the barn, or plying nee
die in the lady chamber" Cupid was
persistently whispering in their guileless
hearts, honied words of higher felicity
in the outer world than that OF life of
celibacy in a Shaker village Eugene
aud Katharine needed the seductive
words Of the tempter in their terrestrial
Eden, and mutually resolved TO fly from
the restraints Of Shakerlom and commit
matrimony How they escaped We shall
not attempt to recount, but they demon
strated the truth OF the adage that
where there is a will there ID a way.
With their all of this worlds goods
snugly packed in few trunks they found
themselves on a train of cars, northward
bound on the Louisville and Nashville
railroad, and fearing "the old folks at
home the enraged bachelor and maid
parents Of South Union = would in
tercept them at Louisville by telegraph,
and put a stop TO their matrimonial re-
solves, they stepped Oh ut this place, and
aided by clerk and clergyman executed
their rash design, and ceased to be Sha
kers, though, true TO humanity, they
shook little, while the nuptial knot was
being tied around their yielding necks