GALLERY OF AMERICAN WOMEN

Evening Star, Issue 20167, 6 May 1929, Page 4

GALLERY OF AMERICAN WOMEN

ROMANTIC PORTRAITS OF AMAZONS, HEROINES, AND FRAUDS ■ When, during Lis Savannah ministry, John Wesley fell in love with the worldly Sophy Hopbcy, his horrified lieutenants persuaded him to decide his matrimonial future by drawing lots. They placed three paper slips into a. hat, shuttled them, knelt to invoke divine guidance—and Wesley drew. Unfolding tho slip, be read: "Think of it no more!'’ But Wesley would not desist. When, to his mortification, Sophy married another, he refused her the Sacrament in open church and fled to England. Such is Sophy’s love story as told by Richardson Wright in ‘ Forgotten Ladies,' a collection of nine romantic portraits chosen at random from America’s gallery of historic women. FIGHTING AGAINST HIS WIFE. After visiting Louis XV. at Versailles the Indian beauty known as “ The Savage Maid ” returned to Louisiana as wife of Captain Dubois, commander, of an outpost. Theu she disappeared. One night the fort was attacked by savages. “ Thinned at each step, the garrison retreated before them. Dubois fought like a madman, for the leader of the Indians was his wife!” Deborah Sampson, disguised as a soldier, fought and courted the girls during the Revolution and was twice wounded. In the following century Belie Boyd rendered invaluable services to the Confederates as a spy during the Civil 'War. was twice imprisoned by the Federala, then sailed with despatches for England, only to be captured at sea and marry the enemy ship’s commander! It was as children in (he nursery Dial the Fox sisters discovered that (hey could make "rapping” noises by .cracking their toe joinls. Their family was quick (o scent commercial pos-ibilii ies in this; queer accomplishment; so the sisters came to found the Spiritualist cult in America, only in laier years to mortify their dupca by confessing the hoax. THE ASSIDUOUS REPORTER. Widowed at fifty-four, faced with poverty, Anne Royall bravely tramped America for material for her hitherto virgin pen. Two hundred and thirty-seven towns she visited; 274 famous personages were interviewed by her. Never was such a reporter! She ransacked convents, universities, prisons; smoked pipes of peace with Indians; spied on amorous parsons, hobnobbed with tavern brawlers. When men saw her coming they cried; “My God ’ I’ll not stay here!” Theu there is the famous instance of her interviewing John Quincey Adams when that -President was as Nature made him. One morning ho left the White House and stepped into the Potomac for a swim. In the manner of small boys lie loft his clothes on the bank. Stroking around, he chanced to look up, and there, seated on his clothes, was Mrs Royall. Several times, she shouted, she had been at the White House and had hern refused audience. Pencil in baud, she was now rea, ly far the interview. When he gave it to lu-r he could have his clothes—not before. Mrs Royall got her interview—ind the President of the United Slates got his clothes'