New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-07-30
CALIFORNIA ROMANCE.
Story of a Man Who Wanted TO Marry
His Daughter.

correspondence st. Louis Republican,
Here in New York, way back when the
gold fever first started in California, there
lived young mechanic who, getting mar
ried in a hurried sort of way, found HIM
self at the age of nineteen the father of a
baby and proprietor of quite a family of his
wife's relations. Not liking the situation,
he threw up his trade and rushed to the
gold fields IN one of the countless vessels
that daily sailed for the Eldorado. Arrived
there, he thought of his wife, and felt bad;
of his baby, and felt bladder; of his mother
in-law, and felt baddest. So he wisely con-
cluded to lay low and see how the old thing
worked-the old thing being his mother-in-
law. Years and years passed by, the truant
became mercant, and finally banker OF
the Pacific slope-no doubt forgot all about
the wife and lady, at all events he stayed
there and made no sign.
The young wife thought of the Chagres
fever and Panama ague, and put lock of his
hair among the obituary pages of the family
Bible. She was poor, and when a well-to-do
neighbor offered to adopt little Emma. she
allowed the plan to be carried out, and
Emma s. became Emma B. She was brought
up TO believe Mrs. s. distant relation, and
finally the family with whom she lived
moved to the city, and very little intercourse
passed between the actual mother and
daughter. Mrs. S. never married again, but
opened a small milliner shop and prospered
in her native town. Emma became an ac-
complished and pretty girl. Her adopted
mother died, and strange to say, the heart
of the widower,. Mr.. b., leaned very much
toward the still nice-looking Mrs. S. I'm
known to any one he was this summer prose-
cutting his courtship IN that direction. He
sent Emma, with a dray load of trunks, to
Saratoga to remain the season, under the
chaOerOnape of a friends family,
Emma became belle directly, and word
was sent to her adopted father of the over
lures made by Colonel S., San Francisco
banker. The name was the same as the
widows, but it was as common as Smith,
and Mr.. B. thought nothing of that, but he
went on and talked with his daughters
lover, and found him man of thirty eight
or forty years Of age, and OF course sought
to know something of Colonel SIS pedigree.
Then it came out where he was born and
where he lived and so Mr.. B. got well con-
WINGED that he was no other than the recre-
ant carpenter of the town of II. He taxed
him with previous marriage and the gal
liant colonel confessed the young indiscre-
ton, but as time had outlawed the debt, he
ignored any responsibility at that period of
his respectable career. Then he gushed to
the supposed parent about his love for
Emma-he had felt drawn toward her at
first sight, etc, and then came out the story
of the girls adoption. The name of the
mother and. more convincing still, the name
OF the mOther-in-law.
There was tall scene between the two
men. But Colonel S. was a man of the
world, and he saw the matter in a rational
light. He would 90 to New York where
Mrs s. was, and take his deserted wife to
his manly breast, and the spouse-like feel
ing he had cOhfracted for Emma should be
merged into fatherly one. This new view
of the predicament didn't suit Mr.. b. He
would much rather the Colonel should mar
~ his own daughter, than come in between
his little matrimonial arrangement. How
ever, there was but one course. The
colonel was Mrs. SIS husband, and he was
Emma's father, and here was Emma, in a
lavender lawn robe de chambre, in her
room weeping at the supposed difficulty be-
tween her father and lover. To make this
little shorter than the regular three vol
umes of circulating library love tale, the
daughter was fully enlightened, and az
sured that, however willing and DESTROYS
she might be, the laws of her country ex-
pressly forbid marrying fathers, even if
thew had resided all their lifetime apart
and abroad. OFF went Colonel s. to New
York to see Mrs. s., and off on the same
train went a letter from Mr.. b. to the grass
widow with a plain statement of all the
facts, including the soft condition of the
gentleman's tMr. B.'s) heart. After eight
cen years abandonment divorce was the
easiest thing in life. In the colOneps case,
absence had not made the widows heart
grow fonder 1t was Mr.. BIS money and
cOuntenance that had built up lucrative
business for her. He was mOre-the father
of her child. So that good looking and rich
as the colonel is at present, he has got
dead shake from his old-time wife, who
will apply for a divorce, get it of course,
and take Mr.. b. for better and worse just
as soon as the month of September arrives.
The mother and daughter are reunited here
in the city waiting events Colonel S. was
at the Saratoga races, the embodiment of
ease, and dear old Mr.. B. hovers about the
milliner and her and his daughter like
benignant full size cherub.
One of the many Misses Young was re-
Gently spoken to by her father, Brigham, in
reference to a proposal for marriage from
Salt Lake merchant. The yeung woman,
with considerable spunk, replied, Il am will