River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1899-05-04
RACING FOR TITLES.
Washington Society Eagerly En-
gagged in This Pursuit.
Playing Fast and Loose with Hcnrts,
Fortunes and Human souls
Bogus Nobiemen Always
ON Hand.
fsneciaI washlngton Letter. ]

For forty days society tasted and
| lived ascetically. The ostentation of re-
ligion is part of the play of society.
| But with the end of the Lenten sea-
son society went out misunderstanding
with vengeance. 1t is an exciting
chase, and not any more dangerous
than elephant-hunting and some of
| the Observation-Disclosures, by the way, catch
! white elephants.
Brass buttons and epaulettes are al
ways attractive. Many of the sweet so
ciety girls who are most ostentatious
with their religious devotions during
Lent are shyly keeping their worldly
eyes on the stalwart fellows of the army
and navy. In this country the brass
buttons and epaulettes stand well, i'm
lieu of foreign titles, although many of
our girls would prefer enfeebled, tot
tering old roues with titles to whole
some American manhood.
Society mammas in the national cap
ital are cold-blooded and calculating
Observation-Disclosures. Did you ever see
game of baseball, where a strong pitch
er sends the ball across the plate like
d IIntSllOt w Clfs THAT IL tHt WHY SOIiG
of these society mammas handle their
daughters. They pick them up, as
pitcher picks up ball, and they hurl
their daughters full at the heads of the
fellows whom they want to capture.
1t makes no difference to the society
mamma whether her daughter has
soul or not, whether she has a future
Il L,
difference whether she is to become a
good wife and a worthy mother, or
whether the man is a thoroughbred or
a moral leper. Mamma wants to marry
off her daughter, and she is going to do
it, somehow, regardless of conse-
quences.
The quest of army and navy officers
for husbands has been going on for
years. Poor boys just out of the mill
tary and naval academies are good
catches for the daughters of rich men,
and they can easily pick their girl out of
choice bevy But the society mammas
are also always after the single men in
the foreign legations and embassies.
Titles are preferred, always.
Unfortunately. this condition of af-
firs is not confined to Washington
city; but we know that all over America
there are society mammas, hurting
their daughters at the heads of spindle
shanked fools, with real, borrowed or
imaginary titles. They pay millions of
dollars for these titles, and their daugh
tiers shed millions of tears afterwards,
as they realize that they have wasted
their lives, and scared their souls, for
baubles light as air.
Miss Gould. of New York, married
Count Castellane. There is no Count
Castellane. There were two Castellane
families, one from Provence and one
from Toulouse. The former, which is
now extinct, rightly bore the title. The
Toulouse Castellanes, to whom belongs
Miss Gould's husband, never had title,
but assumed one when the Provence
family died out.
Count de Rohan-Chabot, who mar
ried Miss Hayward, is not count
either. His name is Chabot. The name
de Rohan he took from his first wife.
There is no Baron de Giers, although
the man whom DR.. Chauncey NJ. De-
pew's ward, Miss Collins, married last
year bears that name. Due Decazes,
husband of Mary Singer of New York,
is the son of police project, and bears