GIRLS WHO RECEIVE HUNDREDS OF PROPOSALS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 184, 25 July 1908, Page 3

GIRLS WHO RECEIVE HUNDREDS OF PROPOSALS.

MEN WHO HANKER AFTER MARRYING BRAVE WOMEN.

V\ h,v the womalf who performs an) especial act of bravery should receiv'i I more proposals than her quieter sistel (who may possibly be a thousand times more attractive)" is a question which will never, probably, be satisfactorily solved either in this world or the next. Yet the fact remains that, whereas a notoriously beautiful woman has received ten proposals, a notoriously brave woman has received a hundred. Perhaps it is because only the few see the beautiful woman, while hundreds of thousands hear of the brave woman.

A ca*c of a woman's " deed of daring" ■ bringing in bunches of proposals may be cited in support of the assertion that heroines really do receive hundreds of proposals when their acts of bravery become known. The lady in this instance was Mrs. dames Brown, of Brooklyn, who, an attractive widow of twenty, captured and thrashed a burglar while helping himself to the contents of her dress-ing-table. Mrs. Brown was well equipped for her task of punishing and capturing thieves, for she is sft. llin. in height and an athlete into the bargain. After treating the burglar to a perfect fusillade of blows from a substantial piece of timber which the widow always keeps beside her bed, she closed with the burglar and called to a girl friend who was stopping with her to telephone to the police, who, strangely enough, arrived before the man had time to extricate himself from the steel-like arms of the wiry widow. Mrs. Brown's pluck was commented on in a great number of papers, and soon proposals began to come in by every post. They came from the most out-of-the-way places, and all were written in a tone which clearly indicated that Ihe writers were sincere in their efforts to annex the plucky widow. The number is now well on in the century mark, and the letters are still coming in. One man wrote:

1 saw your photograph and read o*" your bravery in the newspaper, and would dearly love to know you. I am thity-cight years old, with' blonde hair and blue eyes, i drink moderately and smoke a little. lam a machinist/ and electrician, and make a good salary. Kindly forgive me for being so bold, but you know the old saying, "Faint heart never won fair lady." Mrs. Brown says she may bo a brave woman where » burglar is concerned, but she isn't so brave that she would

marry a man she had never seen. A terrible fire occurred iu Chirago a few months ago in which many people lost their lives. In one of the 'rooms of a building attacked by the flames there were three children sleeping, and it was not until their very beds were being scorched, that the youngsters were remembered. The firemen did their best to reach, the room by means of their ladders, but it was impossible, owing to |

the volumes of ilamc-streaked smoke which were pouring out of the windows. They were preparing to reach the room by means of the burning staircase when a woman's figure appeared at tha window. She had a rope in her hand, and' quite calmly she tied it round one of the children and lowered him to the ground. Quick hands unfastened the knot and the rope was drawn up and another child lowered. The lowering of the third was also safely accomplished. Then, tying the rope to the bed, the young woman—she was no more than twenty—wound a few strands round herl waist and lowered herself to the ground. She was choking with smoke, scorched by the flames, her hair burnt, and her skirt charred. But she was still quite calm, and the cheers that rent the sky when her safety was announced seemed to affect her but little. She explained that she had' remembered the children a few minutes before the mother had done and returned to the building to save them, taking with her a rope belonging to fine of the firemen which lay on the ground. This young woman's plucky deed—her name, Hannah llowarth, deserves to be recorded—was recounted in ahout 3,000 papers

in the Union, and resulted in her receiving over'-700 offers of marriage from men fired by the nobility of her deed.

Sometimes these feminine deeds are not noble, but very much the reverse. There was nothing remarkably heroic, for instance, in Nan Patterson shooting her lover in a hansom cab, yet while she remained in gaol awaiting trial Miss Patterson is said to have received between two and three hundred proposals —some of them from wealthy and, apparently, sane men. One man, who was particularly attentive, wrote many times, and, when she was finally released after three trials, he met her, congratulated her on her escape, became acquainted, and finally married her. The couple are now living quietly and happily-in a suburb of New York. Florence Hums, another young lady who gained notoriety by shooting her lover as he sat at his desk in his office, received inniimerahle proposals of marriage almost immediately after the tragedy. Miss Hums was a pretty girl, and it" was her beauty that swayed the jury. More than one member of the jury had declared that if they had seen Miss Burns shoot her lover they not convict her, so it is little to be wondered at that she was soon set at liberty. Miss Burns's number of proposals -s said to have totalled up to 203, but she never accepted even the most attractive. She is still Miss Burns, and now lives a retired life in New York.