The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-07-16
MERCEDES THE TICKLE.
The Life Of the Beautiful but Wicked
Queen of the Foreign Cir
Gus Ring.
For Years She Rode on Fortunes
Wave and Ruined Many
Careers.
A Short but Thrilling Experiences In
America-Her Love for,a Turkish
Officer.

Mile. Mercedes, whose death recently
was announced from Europe, had a career
full Of adventure. She was q bareback
rider, and for several years was the magnet
which drew half OF Berlin's eilded youth
to the circus REM. Many years ago she
first attracted the attention Of all Euro
psan society to herself by fascinating q
wealthy prince Of Vienna, wheedlinR from
him immense sums of money. and eventu-
ally delivering him entirely into the hands
of his creditors. The PRINCES friends and
relatives rescued him with difficulty from
disgrace. paid his debts and escorted his
oharmer to the Austro-German boundary.
Banished from the queen city of the Ger
mnn world, Mercedes reluctantly chose the
next best field for women of her qualities.
She took HI engagement in Berlin. She
dazzled every man in Prusgian high life,
from counts and dukes down to million
aires. Hearts and gold were laid before
her nightly. She lived like a queen, threw
money right and left to the worthy and I'M
worthy poor, and took and rejected titled
lovers with reckless fickleness. Her fiat,
near tho B~randenburger gate, was a marvel
OF luxury, which Berlinsrs who were in the
current of those days still tell about. She
had unlimited credit m four or five old
Prussian names at the houses OF the most
fashionable jewellers Unter den Linden.
She kept her OWL stables and drove through
tho Thiergarten daily in e%quipages which
tina Hohenzollerns might have envied her.
With all her big game, however, she was
unwise enough to allow a young CO valry
officer OF modest fortune to become entun-
gled in her net. She led bin on till he had
%squandered on her all the money which he
could raise honestly and dishonesty and his
disgrace had become public. Then she
threw him over and he shot himself. The
catastrophe was fatal to her in Berlin. She
was warned by the young officers friends to
leave, and she left. But she did not go IN
avenged. She took with her an 1S-year-old
count. The pair we're caught at Blissengen.
The young knight was accompanied BY po-
lioemen back to his family in Berlin, and
Mile: Mercedes was placed on trial for alb
Quoting. him. She was acquitted, joined an
Italian troupe and came to America.
Her adventures in America are said to
have been about as follows: A rich young
man loved her and wished to marry her.
She accepted his proposal, and they went
through the form of a marriage. After a
few weeks Mile. Mercedes learned that she,
the queen of swindlers, had been swindled;
that the priest who read the marriage SER
vice was no priest at all. but a friend of her
friend attired in clerical garb, and that her
~surpositious spouse was about to slip from
her grip before she would have had time to
spend half OF his money. She shot him
several times one evening, then hurried on
board a Cunarder, and six weeks later was
in Paris hotel, with no n to trouble her.
Such, at least, is the European story of her
short transatlantic life.
In Paris she hau her first and last love.
A wealthy Turkish officer in the diplomatic
service OF the sultan was the object of it.
They lived together happily for some time.
NEa vund faithful tn him and ha Ndnra6 hor
80 for many months it seemed as if the
heroine of a thousand debauohes had set
tied down to an honest life. Her happiness
was ended by the breaking out of the Turko-
Russian wal. Her officer went home to
enter active service. She accompanied him
to Constantinople, attired herself there as a
cavalryman. and rode behind him to the
march and in battle.
She watched him in the fight. twice saved
his life during combats at close quarters,
and when be was pierced through the side
with a Russian bullet, she nursSd him till
she and the other nurses thought him dead.
Before withdrawing from the Turkish ser
vice she, too, was severely wounded, but re-.
covered after five weeks in a hospital. She
was again sound in body, but tho little bit
of a heart. which the Turkish officer alone
had been able to find, had been left at his
hospital bedside.
On the continent with various circus
companies, %gwindling, breaking hearts and
running lives as in her Vienna and Berlin
days, Bhe became the terror of all high-born
papas whose sons knew the great towns, fol
wherever she appeared every young man
who cared for life and beautiful women
fastened to seek an opportunity to find ia
vor in her wonderful eyes.
Last winter Mile. Mercedes went with g
circus company to Smyrna. While riding
one evening she saw in a box her old lover
whom she had left for dead in u Turkish
hospital. She at once left the ring and sent
for him. She fell at his feet in a deliriun
of joy.
He, however, was cold and half indiffer.
ent. She appealed to him; but got no re-
sponse. She finally left him with the words:
Tomorrow l shall be your wife or dead.''
The performance next evening was not
attended by the Turkish officer. Mile.
Mercedes became too nervous after observ-
ing his absense to ride a second time. Fol
an hour after her first appearance she sat
in her dressing room an1iously awaiting
the coming of the only man she had loved,
He did not come. She closed and bolted
the door and shot herself through the
heart.