Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-03-16
THE WASHINGTON SENSATION.


What hollow mockery it is, to be sure,
for Washington society to tip-tilt its mod
est nose, and blush through the rouge,
because bold Mrs. Potter detained at
Secretary Whitney's entertainment the
other night the poem entitled @Ostler
joe" The women who were so shocked
at this rhyming tale, and who have raised
such a row about the recital of the story of
a woman's weakness and fall, and who
after wild career of sin was taken back.
as she lay dying, to the arms of the for
giving and loving husband, "'Ostler joe"
have not manifested any such sensitive
ness at the undress customs of their sex
IN the ball rooms of the National Capital.
low under the sun the fathers and
mothers in Washington can be shocked at
the recital of the story Of IL 'Ostler joe"
and yet preserve their modest equanimity
while their daughters bare their bosonls
from waist to shoulder to the gaze of all
who choose to look, passes wonder itself.
What IS there in the poem that has stirred
this center of propriety to its depths
Certainly not the poetry, for that is but
ordinary. Certainly not the story, for
that IS as old as the beauty of woman and
the deceit Of man. 1t is the method en-
ployed in the telling, perhaps; but that is
very plain and simple, and is duplicated
In every days dispatches from this or that
quarter Of the globe. 1t is the story of a
village beauty, won and wed by an humble
worker but it was a union of true love
at least the maid thought so buta gallant
came that way and lured the girl from her
husbands cottage As runs the rhyme:
Annie ta slfned drS and I'D was tempted she was
As the angels Iell from heaven, to the blacklist
depths of hell:
She was promised wealth and spleudor and n
life of guilty s.oth
Yellow gold for chiid and husband, and the
woman left them both.
Then Joe came to his deserted home,
and kneeling down prayed God to forgive
her; embalming the memory of the one
love Of his life in the unuttered sorrow of
his heart
Neer bitter word he uttered. but in silence
kissed the rod
Saving what ne told the horses; saving what he
told his God
For the pathos the lines express, we
may eondone this rude mingling of the
stable and Deity, as the rhyming story
goes on to tell how, far away in London
town, the beauty shone and won mems
homage, sold her kisses for Jewels and
prospered in her shame She became the
toy of lords and men of high degree, and
dragged her shame upon the stage to sat
lsty the greed of the public eye and fill
her purse with gold. But at last the
night came, and
Broken down in health and fortune, men for
TIL the news that she was dying woke the
echoes of her fame.
And then 'Ostler Joe heard the story in
his distant, deserted home, and forgiving
all, and forgetting all but his love for the
mother of his dead child, he went to her
and
Once again the strong arms clasped her that
had elasped her long ago.
And the weary head lay pillowed on the breast
of ostler Joe.
And so death found and punished her,
and he, more forgiving than his sex, laid
her below the sod. and placed above her
grave the sacred name of wife. The au-
thor draws the usual moral. Perhaps it is
this that has so shocked society, though it
Is to be noted that there is no conformation
by him of the woman's infamy.
That's the blossom fain would pluck to day
from the garden above her dust;
Not the langaorous lily of s5uliess sin. nor the
bloOG-red rose of lust.
But sweet, white blossom OF hoy love. that
grew IN The one green spot
In the arid desert OF PhIyne's life where sll
was rarched and hot.
It is something that society can be
stirred, and if this jingling rhyme, framing
in the love of a poor, weak man for a
wicked woman, has done it, it testifes to
a large degree of sensitiveness in a So
ciety that sends its daughters half naked
to the public floor, with remaining robes
so girt and bound as to be more suggestive
in their voluptuous revealments than ac-
tual disrobement. That women can enter
a protest against modest woman reeiting
this story of Joe's erring wife, and actually
blush at the perfectly probable narrative,
even when told with all the fervor and
warmth Mrs. Potter probably impaired to