Los Angeles herald., 1890-03-24
MARKETING AMERICAN GIRLS.


Our pretty Los Angeles girl, who mar
ried Prince Hatzfeldt, does not seem to
have profited much by her matrimonial
venture. She appears to have caught a
blackleg of the first distinction-a man
who, in the United States and Great
Britain, would have been ruled off of all
the race-courses and expelled from the
clubs. He has the reputation of neither
paying his debts of honor nor respond
ing to the obligations OF love-in this
case meaning unbridled lust. Papa
Huntington paid very dear for the addi-
tion of this princeling to his encourage as
railway magnate. He is understood to
have settled the Princes debts as con-
dition precedent to the alliance, but he
allowed himself to be cheated in the bar
gain. Hatzfeldt's debts have proved to be
an unknown Quantity, and a great quar-
rel is now on between Mr.. Huntington
and the Princes family about who
shall pay the remainder of these obi
cations, the wretched Huntington in
sisting that the Princes family should
at least pay half of them.
The people of Los Angeles cannot fail
to sympathize with their charming
townswoman, who is said to have
blossomed into beautiful and fascinat-
ing lady, and who must suffer excruciat-
ingly from the notoriety which has at
tached to her since her name first be-
came associated with that of Hatzfeldt.
When, as a bright and winsome little
girl, She played around the corner of
Fort and Franklin streets, in this city,
no one ever dreamed that she would have
the ill-luck of marrying blackguard
German prince.
The eagerness of some wealthy Ameri-
cans to sell their daughters to dissipated
Europeans is very dispiriting, and is
pretty commentary upon our boasted
republican spirit. With occasional ex-
ceptions, where American girls have
married into the English aristocracy,
these unions have been unhappy, and
probably the comparatively favorable
result in these latter cases is due to the
greater privacy and reserve of the
English people, who can make things
very unpleasant without rushing into
the newspapers. The exchange of
American beauty and coin against almost
played-out European caste is very poor
one.
II the American parents who are
ready to barter their daughters for a
title figure in a very sorry role, there is
another class who are contemplate be-
yond measure, and that is composed OF
the degenerate scions of European no.
bility who lie in wait for the chance of
picking up rich American girl. Some
time ago a leading society man in New
York was courteous and hospitable to a
couple of European noblemen (?) who
were making the tour of America. His
surprise was extreme, some weeks after
their return to Europe, at receiving
suggested to his New York acquaintance
that he and his friend were open to an
alliance with American girls of large
fortune and approved standing. Be-
tween surprise and disgust the New
Yorker for time was at loss what to
do. For a moment he thought of en-
couraging the mercenary wretches into
visiting America, with well-planned
scheme to make them ridiculous, but he
finally gave up the idea, thinking that
the play was not worth the candle.
There is a comic side to the picture,
and that is where the vulgar and tuft-
hunting American girl, who is delirious
in her anxiety for title, marries the
Count de Mirafores or the Marquis de
Bustamente, and finds to her dismay
that she has taken to her arms billiard
marker or chef de. cuisine. Great are
the weeping and wailing and gnashing
OF teeth that ensue, to say nothing of the
social exterior darkness into which the
frivolous and unfortunate victim of mat
rimonial misadventure is thrust. As to
all such cases at least there can be no
difficulty in assuming the affirmative Of
the postulate that marriage is a failure
The telegraph, the other day, gave
us the details OF a case in which
Miss McEnery, daughter of ex-
Governor McEnery, of Louisiana,
nearly proved victim. On the
passage from Europe to New York
she formed the acquaintance OF fas-
cinating and romantic-looking fellow
who figured as the Marquis de Lermont
He was welcomed by her father and
family, dined, wined and treated to good
things galore. Fortunately for Miss
McEnery her admirer concluded to make
her father and not herself the victim.
Having borrowed several thousand dol
lars from pater fanailias the rogue de-
camped, and the McEnerys had the
modification of learning that they had
been lavish in attentions to chef de
cuisine.
This international matrimonial ques-
ton has become one of the social prob
lens of the day, Of absorbing interest
in suddenly enriched American house
holds.