Shipherd's Love Letters.

New York, 1895

The love letters that Shipherd wrote to Mrs. Crowell are a strong link in the scoundrelism of the whole case. Shipherd had had at least two wives before he became infatuated with Mrs. Crowell, or rather before he hypnotized her. One of these he divorced in Utah by a power of attorney, and then married the other, and it has always been a mooted question among lawyers whether he had not committed bigamy. The last woman that he is known to have married lives on Staten Island and, so far as any one knows, is still his wife, in law. If Shipherd has married any other women the fact has not appeared, but the language in some of his letters creates the impression that if he has not had other wives he has been a villainous woman hunter. Mrs. Crowell regards him as her "husband" and he recognizes the validity of it in his reply to her letters, but that may be based on their free love ideas rather than on the substance of a ceremonial marriage. She said to him as they parted in Philadelphia and he promised her a letter: "A piece of paper instead of my husband! No. I want my husband!" Then he writes to her from Atlanta: "A great many times those words have come back to me, and I have found my respect for them steadily increasing." * * "And then like a flash from heaven came back your words to me, 'A piece of paper instead of my husband! No. I want my husband!' And all my soul cried out, 'Those words are true."' * * "The words above all others in this No. 6 that my soul responds to this morning are these: 'When I am with my husband I feel as if I would like to shut out the world and be alone with my dearest, dearest.'"

Shipherd's ideas of a husband's responsibilities were well illustrated by his defence to an action brought against him for the recovery of property by the children of his last (legal) wife. He offset the children's claim to the property by charging them with the support of their mother, his wife, for a number of years, and for her hotel expenses at Washington during the time of his trouble with Secretary Blaine. Shipherd was beaten in this action. He could not have the services and comfort of a wife at some one else's expense, with the sanction of the court.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, June 21, 1895, p. 4.

Pretty Egyptian 'Vamp' Weds Man Accusing Her of Theft

1920 (Click graphic for bigger)

Romantic Beauty Needs but Five Minutes to Persuade Accuser to Drop Charge and Go to Altar With Her — Declares She Is a Descendant of Cleopatra.

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. — The Princess Della Pattra has made good her claim that she was a champion vamp. Brought here from New York on the complaint of Erich Buehle, a hydraulic engineer, that she had defrauded him out of several thousand dollars, in five minutes she had persuaded him to drop his charge — and marry her. And now [*it's likely there will] have been a little revenge connected with the wedding and that Erich may have more troubles coming.

Erich and the princess met out on the Pacific Coast some months ago. Erich had money. The princess had romance. Erich recounted his accomplishments and expanded upon his prospects. Della confided that she was a niece of the Khedive of Egypt and a descendant of Cleopatra. Her parents, she said. were Hassan El Kammel Bresla and Mardena Salempta, citizens of Alexandria. Pathos entered her story. She was not wanted in her homeland, so she had come to this great America to make a fortune — and to acquaint the world with her much libeled progenitress. To do this she must get into the movies.

Erich Finances Movie Ventures.

Didn't Erich think any director should be glad to employ her? Erich did. Then Della admitted that they weren't. Not a one of those studios out on the coast would give her work. No, but piff! What did she care for them! She would go East. She would become the greatest of Cleopatras. Yes, she would take her charms and her talent to New York. But Meester Erich — it was a delicate matter; she hated to speak of it — the trip, it would cost money. The waiting, that, too, would cost money. And money she had none. She, the niece of the Khedive of Egypt; she, in whom flowed the blood of the Queen of the Nile, was without the necessary.

A happy thought. Perhaps Meester Erich would make her the loan. She hated to ask it. She would pay him back. She would pay him double — threefold, when she should have made the success. Mr. Erich would and did. Several thousand dollars there were in the package he handed her. The princess was overjoyed. She would write him every day. No, she would send him the wire — the mails were too slow.

Erich was at the train when Della — and his money — went away. Weeks passed, and Erich heard from neither. He grew impatient. His impatience developed into anger, and he went to the police. The police listened to his story. It sounded bad for Della, so they wired detectives in New York. It wasn't long till Della was found.

Della Makes Peace.

She was taken before a judge. She heard that Erich was anxious about her — and his money. She laughed. "I want to go back," she said. "I want to talk to Erich. I know everything will be all right after I see him." The judge doubted Erich's reception, but he showed her her ticket for San Francisco.

In San Francisco she was visited by the young engineer. They talked together alone, and Erich obtained her release. For a few days their names were out of the papers. And then one morning Erich Buehle and Princess Della Pattra appeared at the window of the marriage license clerk. They went from there to the offices of Judge Bernard J. Flood, picking up an audience of newspaper men and courthouse employes as they went. And there the ceremony was read.

The Princess wore a sumptuous gown of rose in which she had created a sensation [**] before upon her arrival from New York; under it were silver pumps. An oriental touch was given by a black lace harem veil and great hoop earrings which might have delighted her ancestress.

All Solemn but Della.

The words of the ceremony were solemn; the judge was solemn; more solemn than either was Erich, bur there was nothing solemn about Della. She couldn't keep her eyes from wandering coquettishly toward the little group of newspapermen who composed the audience, while her lips were parted in a smile, which with the dazzling expanse of tiny white teeth it revealed, must have made even the Judge's mind stray.

But what could one expect? Surely, not that the princess should enter matrimony in the same manner as those of less amorous antecedents. Della has inherited too great an understanding of love and lovers to be much impressed by any of love's formalities. It was pretty serious business for Cedric, but for Della it was a lark.

"All lovers quarrel," Della said. "The more they love the more they quarrel. The more 'caveish' the man, the more severe his actions to win the woman he loves."

Under her arm she carried a cookbook. "We go to a hotel for supper," she said. "After that I take my cookbook home and I cook some hotcakes."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 4.

[*] Some words, letters mostly gone. This phrase is partially a guess.
[**] Missing approximately 5 or 6 words.

Mayor of Racine, Wis., Disclaims Wife's Baby

1920

Attacks Mate's Character in Reply to Her Divorce Action

RACINE, Wis. — William H. Armstrong, mayor of Racine, testified, in answering an action for divorce brought by Mrs. Armstrong, that he is not the father of a child born to her in September of last year.

He asserted he had denied the child from the day of its birth and that when a birth certificate had been sent to him he had crossed his name from it and sent it to Mrs. Armstrong by his 11-year-old daughter, Evelyn.

Denying cruelty charges brought by his wife, the mayor insisted she had never taken care of his home or properly prepared his meals and that the children were frequently ignored during a time when Mrs. Armstrong was out late at night day after day.

He said he had been made ridiculous by his wife's conduct in attending a masquerade party in tights, and that her constant falsehoods had made his home life unbearable.

Slippery Rock War On Vice, Street Walkers, Debauchery

Pennsylvania, 1913

Sun Calls Upon Citizens to Rise in Their Might and Stamp Out Social Evil

Slippery Rock is in sore need of social house cleaning. In it are festering sores of licentiousness which are spreading so rapidly that the clean and whole part of its body is in danger of infection from the loathsome suppuration. The Sun has been importuned by some people to turn on the light of publicity in an effort to stop the growth of social evil in our midst. Still more people have cautioned silence on the ground that publicity of our shame would "give the town a bad name."

We have come to the point where the town, has a bad name because the people who practice lasciviousness have not been rebuked for their crimes against morality and decency. Emboldened by the evident desire to brush and gloss over their rottenness, the lecherous slaves of a brute passion give little heed to the opinions or sentiments of the moral and virtuous majority and nightly practice their soulless and lustful business.

For years a bunch of girls who have forgotten how to blush have been street walkers and dissolutes, loitering on corners and about public places seeking their mates in the hellish business of social depravity. A brood of nameless illegitimate children are the fruits of their shameless crimes. We have all sympathy for the unfortunate girl who falls because of her love and trust in a lecherous and brutal man, but when in brazen disregard of her own shame or the moral rights of her associates, she persists in the practice of her infamy and seeks to draw mere children, perhaps her own fatherless ones, into the life of virtueless debauchery, even the broad mantle of Christian charity is scarcely able to cover her sin. from such a school was graduated the poor girl who paid the penalty of her shame with her life a few months ago and the recital of which calamity in the public press brought a blush to everyone who owned Slippery Rock as a habitat.

But not alone is the street walker to blame for the condition in our town that is a stench in the nostrils of decency. People who enjoy position in the social, business and church life of the community, have so far forgotten man and womanhood, the marital vows and a sense of moral obligation that they have put themselves on a plane with the back alley dissolutes. And their crimes are greater, because they not only debauch their own moral natures, but invade the homes of neighbors, bringing the horror of undeserved shame upon the innocent wife or husband who learns of the detection of her or his unfaithful mate.

After much deliberation and conferring with those who are working for the moral uplift of the community, The Sun has decided that the only way to stop the obscene and vulgar practice is to turn the spotlight on those who are persistently guilty. Hereafter any scandal touching on the social evil will be printed, and with it the names of the participants, be they street walkers, church workers, business or professional people; not because it is scandal, but that the right kind of publicity may warn the passion slaves that their underworld actions will be shown in the broad light of day. Such a campaign will be more dangerous to dissolute husbands and faithless wives than to the unmarried lawbreakers and that is as it should be. — Slippery Rock Sun.

—Reprinted in New Castle News, New Castle, PA, Oct. 31, 1913, p. 10.