Hunting Titled Husbands.

Evening Star, Issue 8720, 12 January 1892, Page 2

Hunting Titled Husbands.

THE CABEEE OF CERTAIN AMERICAN GIBLS IN EUEOPE. A writer in the San Francisco ' Argonaut' has an article on the career of certain Amerioan girls in Europe—the olass of girls who are rich (but not very rich), vulgar, early spoiled by consumption of cheap novels, and who have left the States with the avowed object of finding a titled husband. Most of the American girls who have made brilliant international marriages have had (he says) either immense fortunes or remarkable personal beauty. The opening up of the campaign is a very difficult piece of work. No one knows exactly how these people do it. Some of them undoubtedly enlist the aid of those lofty ladies in reduced circumstances who will deign, for a large pecuniary consideration, to float the fair Amerioan in the British swim. The sum required is very high Oftentimes the ambitious stranger finds her social godmother cannot do so much for her as she at first promised; but she does not break loose from her support, which is better than nothing. Again, the neophyte, who cannot be expected to find out everything at the first blush, falls into the hands of some jolly'or hail-fellow-well-met marchioness or countess, whoße means afe as small as her capacity for appreciating a good time is large. She has a large cirole—if not of the best, at least of people whose names Bound well and are often historic—and she can present to her fair oharge half a dozen unmarried aspirants who have nothing to offer to the charming stranger but a useless title—a very small- one at that—and an appalling array of debts that they intend her to pay. Sometimes, in the first days of her emigration, when she has just left her own country, her cleverness is yet untainted by spite, and her detested Americanisms still crop out, she sometimes falls in with a blast, good-humored, cynical man, doable her age, and enjoying the high position in the world of fashion that she so much envies. He, to amuse himself and foster his cynicism by watching the foibles of the class he despises, helps her forward toward that goal which she so ardently hopes to reaoh. But with all her cleverness, her airy prettinese, her money, her advantages, she finds the game a much harder ore to play than she had at first imagined. She comes unknown and almost uninrroduced, and " the best people " are not sure of her. She finds that wealthy, and good-looking, and unknown American girls are not so rare ia the Continental market at they once were, Foreigners 'are beginning to be a little frightened of these highly dowered daughters of the Golden West, who, with only a mother and a maid in tow, browse round Europe, squeezing themselves into society wherever they turn find an opening, elbowing their way right and left, fighting almost hand to hand for notice from people who, they think, are the kind to be courted, snubbing their own countrymen and women, slavishly trying to find favor with impecunious and dull-witted members of the nobility, who smile at them to-day and cut' them to-morrow.

To the ambitiotu yonng woman who dreams of this foreign career of adulation, admiration, and brilliant success, there are heart-burnings and disappointment* of the deadliest. The penniless foreign aristocrat who inteada to sell hie title for a fortune u not always a desirable parti, and, moreover —as sharp as she is—wants to drive a pretty olose bargain, In exchange for his fine name.

he expeoti a large fortune. A moderate one will not wlt-lt mut be in the million.. He lolteri round the new American till he hears at what figure her dot foots up, and, finding it too low for him, flits away to other flowers. She has a good many offers from different pretendants, an*, in her turn, finding them fall below her expectations in standing and style, refuses them all. So she goes on for years. Seaaon after season sees Ber ever returning to the hunt, and ever reretiring unsuccessful. Two or three years Bufflce to banish her early ambitions. The men she thought she could buy are only to be had for sums far beyond her means. Those whom she can get she will not have. They are altogether too low to be taken without a title. She grows sour and somewhat peaked. Her once delicate prettineaa Bucoumbs to the wear and tear of the season's hard work. Even her cleverness, which time generally ripens, suffers in the contest with fortune. Where she was once pleasantly sharp and witty, she is now spiteFul and bitter. People grow a little bit afraid of her; she cannot keep all the gall and wormwood of her thoughts under the surface. As to her mother, she never speaks exoept in public for in private she is afraid of getting hor nose Bnapped oil.