THE CLOWN'S BRIDE. Love's Young Dream Brought to a Sudden Bad.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 226, 29 October 1887, Page 4

THE CLOWN'S BRIDE. Love's Young Dream Brought to a Sudden Bad.

A gentleman of some prominence in business circles was bitting with a friend in the Grand Hotel at office one evening recently, when the conversation drifted to circus management and en torpi ise. ' ' The coming ot Forepaugh," he said, " recalls one of the most interesting periods of my life. It has enough romance in it to make it worth the telling- Besides, iv shows what peculiar incidents sometimes follow from fancied affection. Thirty years ago I was experiencing on a Nebraska farm what falls to the lot of well-to-do farmers' boys. I had my pleasures, but they came at intervals, after days and weeks of hard work. We had a neighbour whose daughter won my fancy. She was beautiful, vivacious, and jiibt such a girl as to win the attention of a guileless youth like myself. Young love ran blindly along until my father discovered that the neighbour's pretty daughter and myself were engaged to mariy. However, this betrothal, or what you may call it, did not take place until 1863, when I was afcout 18 years old. My father made it a lively engagement for me, and finally succeed in blasting my hopes. The young lady and I mado several attempts at elopement, but ho always frustrated them. My love dream continued, with repeated interruptions, until the j neighbour's daughter lett home and went to 'bmaha, where she took service in a hotel. Her people were poor. It becamo necessary for her to earn hor own living. As I had nothing without my father's assistance to support a wife, wo concluded to wait a year or two longer, and in the meantime she was to work and save for the common fund upon which we expected to go to housekeeping." " What was t/ho result?" the friend inquired. . "lam coming to that. In it lies the romance of my story, or what little there is of it. My promised wife had been gone but a few months, when she wrote mo that she had married a circus clown, and was preparing to take her place in Orion's show. I was sorely grievod for a time, while my father was greatly elated." " Did you ever see her again ? " Did I ? Well, Ido not want to see her again under such circumstances. One day, two or three years after that I was in Omaha. A cirous was in town— Cole's as well as I can recollect. While on the way to the show grounds I unexpectedly overtook my old sweetheart and her husband, the clown. The meeting was friendly enough. Both of us had recovered from our youthful infatuation, and we could meet without ernbarassment. We three walked together to the circus, but the affairs of the old neighbourhood and old times which my once promised bride and myself recounted were not interesting to the husband. Directly he said : ' You take Nellie down to the shove. I have got to go back to the hotel.' I did so, and went into the dressing-tent on her invitation. I had been about two minutes among the horses and elephants talking to Nellie before she went into the women's apartment, when I received a terrific blow back of the ear. It knocked me sprawling, dangerously near to the foot of a huge elephant. Nellie screamed, assisted by the other women, and a half-dozen strong-armed canvasmen rushed in, and seeing me, the stranger in the camp, started to beat out what little life was left in me. The women interfered, the bellowing elephant got loose, the horses cavorted, and in the menagerie the lions and tigers roared the monkeys chattered, and the deuce was to pay." < • Welt, what did you do ?" " What; did I do ? Why, I sneaked out while the uproar was at its height. Do you think I was going to stay there and be knocked down again by an iron-jawed-copper-bound cannon ball performer sup, ported by half-a-dozen brawny and mur-derous-looking canvasmen. From that day to this I don't know whether it was accident or the jealousy of the husband that caused my suffering. lam sure he had no reason to fear Nellie and I running away. Both of us had got bravely over our young love's dream. I never saw her again until twelve years later, when Coup's circus came here. I took my wife to the show in the afternoon, and when the trapeze act came on, so did Nellie, to my surprise. To see her hang by her teeth in midair was the wonder of wonders. I could think of nothing bub those happy callow days on the Nebraska farm. Here was I, fche farmer's boy, in good business, with a family of devoted wife, boys and girls, there the sweetheart of long ngo, the neighbour's prettydaughter, swinging through the air with the greatest of ease and holding on with her teeth like grim death to a Blender rope. Of course, I went to the circus again that night and saw Nellie. She was still beautiful, winning and entertaining, as I fouud in calling on her in the dressing tent. Since I liavo seen her on that memorable day in Omaha she had been around the world and came back with a net saving of $50,000. It represented part of her salary, bub the most of ib came from the sale of her photographs in South America, where she was immensely popular. Nellie and her husband separated some time after a daughter was born to them in Australia. He is now in Chicago. She married again, and when Forepaugh's show comes here I intend to go and see little Belmonb, the darling and beautiful performer in the menage act. It is little Belmont, Nellie's daughter."-—" Indianopolis Journal."

Tho Socialists are' denouncing Hem*y George for retaining in his own pocket tho 1.5,000 a year that they allege he is making out of the " Standard." That is all right, though. Mr George's avowed aim is to abolish poverty. •