The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-07-24
On the Feminine Down-Grade.

Near Leadville the other night peripa-
tetic undertaken was prospecting for q job
in the usual way, by hanging around the
gambling miners at Happy-Thought camp,
when suddenly a drunken desperate
smashed n bottle over a woman's head,
and there was an explosion of excitement
very rarely happening in those diggings
to signaliZe such trifle as murder. The
strange eccentricity of the victim was the
cause of this unwonted uproar, for il was
goldenhaired female, with all the fascina-
ton OF a siren, in spite of hel degradation.
She was known as Annie Lourie, and was
waif from over the sea, with a strangely
picturesque and tragic romance, which
was believed by the sentimental because
of the refinement and education that the
woman showed at times. As they laid
Annie Lourie in the ground, and the TN
dertaker began to hand around the hat for
subscription settlement of his bill, miner
said: THAT there grave now hides the
real story forever"
The miner was mistaken; for. a gentle
man in New York at once knew by her
name of Wintermede, which they supposed
there to be assumed, that the woman was
the widow OF an Englishman who had
fought more than once for her, and finally
died of shame and grief. At carnival
ball in New Orleans in 1868 she was the
IllOSl WOuldu pIcScut, ucE
jealous young husband showed such signs
of wrath at the attentions she received, and
the manner in which she encouraged them
that the city was not altogether surprised
when a few mornings afterward Mr.. Win
termede was brought back from "over the
Metairie ridge" with bullet in his groin,
put there, according to the code of honor,
by Mr.. Dagobert Lecompte, the gayest
and handsomest Lothario of New Orleans.
The lady and the Lothario both disap-
peared, and Mr.. Wintermede remained
writhing with the bullet, disappointed re-
venge, jealousy, love for his solden-haired
siren and general complicated agony of
body and soul resulting from having been
| made a fool of. e....
To lose honor, wife, love and almost life
at one pop, and partly by ones own fool
ishness, is the anti-climax of pleasant
thought, and Wintermede, with all these
combined, would certainly have gone up
but tor one thing. He swore he would
get well in order to get even. At the end
Of four months he walked out, with iron
look 45 instead of 25. He took two years
of travelling to find Dagobert Lecompte,
but finally he espied that gentleman stroll
ling alone the Champs Elysees, in Paris,
and at once provoked him to duel" as
Paul de Cassagnac would say. The
Lothario bowed and said:
"Ah, sir, very well, if you insist; but
do not know why these matches of skin
and courage should be played in rubbers,
like whist or euchre. On the last occasion
l did not trouble you to give me reason
least ask the favor of you to assign some
cause for our deadly resentment"
| "D-n your effrontery," cried the injured
husband. "Where is my wifer"
| upon my honor, do not know" said
Dagobert, and then, as light broke upon
him, "Upon my honor, monsieur, if you
suspect me of anything except mere ac-
Quaintance with madame you are unjust
and strangely misinformed." His look
and accent were so full of surprise that
| Wintermede was stunned with the thought
that he had caught the wrong man. An
explanation convinced him that he had,
and he started to find the real offender.
| 1t was another year before he succeeded,
and then he discovered his wife the ad-
mircd ceatre of fashionable circle in
Naples, as she appeared as Mrs. Reginald
Lacey, and in the pretended husband he
recognized a tiashy adventurer of New
Orleans, whom he had entirely overlooked.
Mr.. Wintermede at once slapped his face
and accepted challenge. but Lacey was
not what Frenchmen, Italians, Germans,
| hhu Saii q httI xAt
| the last moment he fled, and left his
seconds to hold the bag for all the con-
tempt and scandal.
The husband then drove to see his wife
and asked her what she thought now of
the coward whom she had preferred to
him. She gave him a dozen of her siren
smiles, and implored him in flood of
tears to take her back, etc.
"Take you back!" he replied. "Thcre
is but one link that connects us. 1t is my
intention to drag you down to the lowest
depths of degradation, where your evil
nature will take you. You have the face
of an angel; the heart of dog" ...
The next morning gay German baron
challenged Wintermede, the lady having
agreed to accept his protection if he could
shoot her husband. Wintermede named
doubled -barrelsd guns, in the most desper-
ate southern plantation style, and the bar
on declined to obtain the lady at the price
of such a risk. Failing in two other ar
tempt to make herself widow, Mrs. Win
teremde let go her hold on the doubtful
continental society of a certain sort, and
at once began to go down into the swirl
and eddy of that mad stream which en-
CULTS lost women. She sank SO rapidly
that the husband felt his revenge glutted,
and having no longer the excitement that
had borne him across the chasm of
broken heart, he let go his hold of life,
and, like a weary old man, lay down for
ever where the wicked and weary cease
from troubling, while the golden.haired
siren was drifting toward the stormy
wreckers of Happy-thought camp.
The Swiss government has paid 5000.
600 frances to the St. Gothard Tunnel
Company which have been hitherto with