05/26/2026
Scandals come and scandals go, as do the scandalous.
Today’s post highlights the odd occurrence of events in which an 18-year-old woman, touring nationally with a chorus line, fell for a very wealthy man twice her age. In the end, he was dead of a gunshot wound. She was charged with and found guilty in his death, but only served a one-year sentence. Her release brought joy to the many, many fans who felt she was wrongly convicted.
All of this was such a big deal that The Tangier Citizen (Tangier, OK) of May 26, 1905 felt obliged to publish as its lead story, the saga of Nan Patterson and Caesar Young.
While this post runs a bit long, it is worth reading in its entirety. It was obviously written by someone with literary experience beyond mere newspaper reporting and reads as a moralist tale of the late 19th century (think Anthony Trollope).
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THE REWARD OF FOLLY.
Nan Patterson Free After a Year of Imprisonment.
Nan Patterson, the coquetting chorus girl, the dashing mistress and accused murderess of Caesar Young, at last has her freedom. The long-suffering public can now swallow the gulp of pity that has been handing in its throat and prepare to hail “Nan” as one of the heroines of the day. While circumstantial evidence was almost overwhelmingly against her, the sympathy of the people was strongly in her favor. Whether guilty or not guilty of the crime with which she was charged, she is guilty of other offenses against the laws of virtue and morality, most deplorable in their nature. But in these she was no more guilty than her sensual-hearted paramour who has gone to meet his God with the mark of a modern Cain on his brow. Caesar Young was worse than a murderer of the body – he was a soul destroyer, a trifler with the weaknesses of a weak but fascinating woman. Perhaps Nan had not been following the path of rectitude any too closely before she met the gallant and handsome Caesar Young – the lamb-hungry wolf, the genteel libertine, but her own story of the career thereafter is a repetition of social outrages over which the veil of charity refused to be drawn. And yet this instance is only one of the thousand with which modern society reeks. Only a small per cent terminate so fatally, and few of these have the lime light of publicity turned on them as in the present case; but such revelations are sufficient to make the thoughtful mind ponder on the effect they are likely to produce on public opinion and private morals.
Nan says that her and Caesar’s relations sprang out of a “case of love at first sight,” which is the silliest kind of flim-flam. It was simply the kind of love that Satan had for Eve when he wound her up in a network of flatteries. A man who will induce a woman to break her marriage vows, and follow him on the road to shame, who deceives his own wife for the sake of treading the primrose path of dalliance with a weak-willed enchantress, as Caesar Young did in this case, is no more capable of genuine love than is the gluttonous dog that devours the innocent bird because it pleases his appetite. Likewise, the woman that would desert all that is most sacred and womanly in her nature to come the spoiled darling, the worthless plaything of some subtle-tongued rascal, knows no more of true affection than the silly fish that nibbles at the worm concealed. The inevitable result of such performances is disastrous; only sorrow that can not be consoled and shame that can not be outlived are the penalties that await the votaries of immorality and mockers of virtue.
The acquitted actress, may well congratulate herself that she has fared so well, and should profit by the fearful lesson stern fate has taught her. But will she do it? Will she exert her influence on the side of morality, pointing to her own experience as a warning to unsuspecting girls of the pitfalls with which our corrupted social system abounds, imploring them to beware of the dizzying whirlpool of sin into which she plunged heedless and headlong? Or, tempted by the cajolements of designing men, fascinated by the illusions of wealth, will she go before the footlights to act out the story of her own blighted life? Better, a thousand times better, that she should have died in the arms of her dead devotee, than that her talents be thus employed to gratify the baneful desires of the fickle public. By a strange turn of fate she leaped from obscurity into prominence – the world is ready to applaud most any kind of sensation she may stir up, but unless she changes her course consequences fearful in their nature, will be the fitting climax of unprofitable existence.
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Stop into the Plains Indians & Pioneers Museum to learn more about local scandals and those responsible. If you come in this afternoon, you can sit in on the latest spine-tingling (spine-tingling we’re tellin’ ya!) meeting of the PIPM Anthony Trollope Society. In today’s meeting, the group will pass around a copy of Can You Forgive Her? from the Palliser Series and read individual passages all while munching on Nacho-flavored Bugle snacks (they were on sale Dollar Tree).
We are paramour-, primrose path of dalliance-, and admission-free. Seriously, if you’ve never read any of Anthony Trollope’s work, you’re missing out. The man wrote part-time, while working in a career as a postal employee. His work truly stands out among English literature. True, he is a moralist, but somehow me thinks we could use a bit of that about now. Just sayin’…
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