Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1899-01-12
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/ MISSIONARY CRUISE OF :
4 DANISH COUNTESS. 8

From Europe there have come to
the United States at various times
strange, weird persons, some bent on
errands of philanthropy and others
from motives of curiosity. Sailing
around the Great Lakes in her own
yacht is woman who can take her
place on the list. She is the Countess
Schimmelman, from Denmark. She
is not precisely a reformer, though
she may see many things that she
would like to have changed. but
wherever she is she certainly does
good. Over in Denmark, she says,
che heard nothing but bad of America,
but since arriving here she finds the
truth of the American conviction that
this is pretty good country to live
In after all.
At home she was the Queens favor
ite, and she passed the first thirty
years of her life exclusively at court.
Then she got restless and wanted to
see the wide, wide world, and try to
alleviate some of the misery which she
vaguely understood existed. She
sold her property and bought ship,
and in this cruised about the Baltic in
the summer and in Southern seas in
the winter. She established coffee
houses and did good in many little
ways. OF recent years she stayed in
the cities i'll the winter, and turned
her ship for the time into home
for the poor boys who wanted to fol-
low the sea.
Three years ago she bought the
yacht Duen, or Dove, of Prince
Waldemar, and by this time, her work
becoming we'll known among the mem
bers of royalty, they contributed
largely in aid of her enterprise. Her
brothers, however, caused her arrest
once and put her in an asylum. Upon
her release she resumed her labors.
Now she has come over to America in
her yacht, and, having passed up the
st. Lawrence, and through the We'll
land Canal, she is making tour of the
Upper Lakes with her three adopted
sons, whom she brought over with her.
She intends to visit her countrymen
in the Northwest, so that when she
returns home she will know whether
to advise the thousands there who
want to change their homes to come to
to our promised land.
The Countess speaks English with
ease. She is of medium height, has
brown hair, blue eyes and clear,
clean-cut profile. She presents the
appearance of German matron who
has several winters to see before she
turns forty, writes a reporter who
visited her on her queer craft at
Chicago. A very slight cap did not
hide the waves of soft brown hair that
fell about her forehead. When she
did not talk in her slight foreign ac-
cent she smiled as she listened to
guest who was more than likely trying
to answer some question the Countess
had asked about the suffering in
Chicago among the poor.
81 like Americans" she said; ''you
have no caste and the epoorest laboring
man is a gentleman. 1 have great
hopes for success in Chicago. The
sailors l have spoken with and the
men on the docks tell me the condi-
ton of the men in Chicago is not as
bad as 1 have been led to believe"
The Countess picked up Walter
Wyckoff's book, '"The Workers"
from her table. "Thls is all the
source of my information as to the
poor of Chicago at present" she said,
"but is it true you have 200, 900 men
unemployed here every winter?"