Sad Tale

Dusky Prince Batoula, 44-year-old heir apparent to a native "throne" in Senegal, French West Africa, corrected last week the impression that he was going to make a Princess out of Harriet Mercer, a Harlem laundress whom he met on a recent visit to New York City. In a darkened salon of his Paris apartment His Highness, who already has four wives in Africa, told a United Press correspondent that he had offered to pay Miss Mercer's steamship fare and expenses to Paris only because he wanted her as a secretary and an English teacher, not as a wife.

Laundress Mercer, who was elated over the prospect of becoming a Princess and did not mind telling people about it, was dismayed over this turn of events. In letters from Paris, where she arrived after five days of seasickness. Miss Mercer first wrote Harlem friends that life was a song. "The Prince has given me everything that any woman can ask for," she said. "He has a large ten-room apartment, a maid and a Personal Secretary. The Maid does everything for me. My bath, bed and Clothes, it is really too good to last, but I still think the Gods are very kind to me."

Three days later the gods ran out on her and, still keeping Harlem posted, saddened Miss Mercer had to write: "Prince Batoula was very disgusted with the cheap publicity. The papers in Paris carried the story and it has hurt him tremendously. I didn't know it meant so much to him. You know he has a certain standard to maintain here and now he has been completely ruined. He is not like the Americans. He can trace his ancestry back for 600 years. He has never been a slave and neither have any of his people. He is of Royal blood and this sort of gossip touches his family. I don't know whether I will ever marry him now. It hurts me very much for him to be socially ruined. I love him more than I ever dreamed I would. My whole life has been ruined because I tried to do too much. I shall remain in Paris until I have rectified the wrong that I have committed."

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