1500 LOVE LETTERS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 85, 5 December 1912, Page 2

1500 LOVE LETTERS.

1 d. : : . IT ' ' The Eastern States of America were amused and startled recently by a widely published advertisement announcing tiiat Sirs Clara Brown, of Kansas City, Missouri, widow, was in quest of, a not.“Western” or “corn-fed,” , M |The exfilusibn of Western and country-bred men as applicants for t|(p,, ) wealthy rand beautiful widow’s the male inhabitants of. the-Eastern States, and letters by hundreds were sent to Chicago, where the lady is living, from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other large Eastern cities. The egotism of the;writer?, however, has now received a set-back, for the mysterious Mrs Brown, interviewed for the firsttime, declared that she had renounced every one of. her 1500 suitors. “I am rejecting them,” she said, smiling, “more in sorrow than in anger. |1 have no feeling against any of these men; they merely won’t do.”

The 1500 love letters, says the Telegraph correspondent, are about as varied a lot as were ever gathered together. Among the widow’s rejected suitors are:— Harvard graduate 66 Yale men ... ' SO Oxford graduates ... 13 Scions of the “nobility” ... ... 150 Men with fortunes between £2OOO and £IO,OOO 200 Clergymen or students for the ministry ... ' 18 Men separated, but not divorced 29 Widowers 208

Perhaps the real x-eason for Mrs Brown’s rejection of all her suitors was the receipt of the following letter from Mr W. J. Gaynor, Mayor of New York City, which Mrs Brown said was the only letter she had received that was worth while, and she was going to act on its advice. The Mayor’s letter was as follows: Dear Madam, —You are looking for happiness in the wrong direction. I do not think there is any man living who would suit you. If you want to be really happy for the rest of your life, work for the happiness of others, and forget yourself. “I can’t propose, you know, even in Leap Year,” says Mrs. Brown, pathetically, “and as a result of the letters addressed to me I have learned so much that I don’t want any husband now.” Many of the gems of literature sent to Mrs Brown are pul* fished in the newspapers. All show a remarkable bump of egotism to be possessed /by all the writers. Perhaps the most amusing and flattering letter came from a New York chauffeur, who declared to “dear Madam” that he was willing to marry any woman—black, white, red, green, blue, or yellow—because he was out of work; but if he had a good position he wouldn’t marry the best woman on earth.