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60 ' THE IE A PER. [No. 356, Saturday,
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THIS. PICTURE AND THIS. A King ots Naple...
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IF ANDREWS, THEN KINGLAKE. Southampton h...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Mablliage Anomalies. Coudd " All The Wor...
the different manners and customs of different countries , the totally dissimilar principles and objects which people propose to each other in the several parts of the "world . We may trace the varieties to the different < circumstances , social , political , or even ecoaiomieal . It "would be necessary , in the present state of the "world , to draw conclusions from very broad premises indeed , and mot to attempt to draw them too strictly . In this country -we most usually allow something to personal inclination ; perhaps in the vast majority of cases liking is supposed to be the real motive of the marriage ; Sut even in this country we could parallel some of the
strangest incidents of foreign lands . A Canadian paper relates , lvow a respectable German , who resides at Toronto , " came to this city [ Bochester ] a day or two since , to get him a wife . " He was a widower with three children , and he wanted some one to take charge of his household . Accordingly , " lie made honourable proposals to some girls about town , " but without success . Girls in ^ Rochester apparently do not eatch at eligible marriages ! "At last he applied to Mr . Duirfee , Superintendent of the County Poor , who took him to the County-house , and there introduced him to a clever G-erman
girl about twenty years of age . After some consideration , she accepted the offer ; " and at four o ' clock the couple -were " united by Police Justice Mooue , and set off immediately for Toronto , apparently well pleased with each other . " Here was marriage before wooing ; and , considering all the circumstances , it is possible that if the G-ermans were sensible and good-hearted , the circumstances of a colonial life might contribute to
cultivate a very fair amount of attachment . Well , that incident happened to Germans in Canada , but we know the exact parallel in England , and not in humble life . A gentleman , who has a title , paid a Bhort visit to his native country in passing from one appointment to another . His receptions had lacked t " he adornment of a lady president , and he resolved to pick up one in passing . He accepted invitations to parties , and at a dinner party discovered the very object of his search . He proposed , was accepted , and now presents to a numerous and loyal public the very model of an English household .
When the war broke out in Prance , a gentleman was summoned to accompany his regiment . A lady had conceived a very strong attachment to him ; and he must , in some degree , have encouraged that attachment , since in consenting to a * spiritual' union , he confessed that the lady had some claim upon liim . She pleaded that he might be killed , and might never return , and that she had a strong- desire to be so far united with him tinder the Churcli . Accordingly , the very hour
before his departure thoj r were joined in matrimony by a worthy cleric . The soldier did his duty in the field of battle , and came back ; but returning with a cool head and reflecting more deliberately upon the union , he appears to have seen fho objections more strongly than the advantages . At all events the spiritual union was not followed by a civil union . The lady naturally tliought this ncivilandlike i ' ¦
w ; , Sappho of old , she pursued the retiring lover with importunities ; only instead of couching her Sapphics in verse , she embodied them in a process for " restitution of conjugal rights . " Practically the husband pleaded that the lady had obtained possession of-him on false pretences , —that the union was effected with a view to the contingencies of the battle-field , and on spiritual grounds and he was willing enough to accept the senti s | L i i 3 , -
mental relation , but declined to accompany his concession with the endowment of his goods and chattels . The court held the de- 7 a -
fence to be good , and the judge declared the lady to be an Artemisia—only with a live MIausotjts ! " How Trench ! " we cry : yet , not long since , a case of breach of promise occurred in the English courts , very close in resemblance to this French case , and not altogether unprecedented in this country . The Siecle tells a romance of real life , which may serve as a comment on the German-Canadian marriage and its dangers . M . CffABiES T—— -, the son of a wealthy merchant in Paris , was married to Mademoiselle Etrgenie D -, only daughter of a manufacturer . ^ Everything was calculated to make tbe union happy—with one exception . The wedding was brilliant , the banquet sumptuous , the ball in the evening splendid . In the midst of the dancing , however , the husband disappeared , and on . her toilet-table the wife found a packet of letters and this note : — - " Madam * , ¦— If I had no right , in marrying you , to expect a sincere affection , since we were but little acquainted with each otter , I , however , looked for a heart which had never throbbed for another , and which I might by assiduity and . tenderness in the end make my own . But a long series of letters from you to another man have jast been placed in rny hand—letters which prove that if you give me your hand , your affection lias fceen given to another . I cannot , madame , accept such an arrangement , and as I am unable to rend ' asunder the bonds which have joined us a few hours since , I am determined to protest at least by my absence against the union which I have contracted ; and the first day of your marriage shall be the first also of a widowhood which shall only terminate by the death of one of us . Adieu , madame , for ever !" How many presumptions do we detect in this letter ! The gentleman evidently expected to find in . the lady nothing but the raw material which he could mould to his own liking ; a passive , plastic clay , "What right he had to such a purchase we don't know ; but in France the right seems to be conceded . Next day the bride was discovered dead in her chamber , from the fumes of charcoal ; and on the table lay this other note :- — " Monsieur , —It is I who am in the wrong , and it is I , therefore , who ought to offer a reparation . I give you the only one that is in my power—I restore to you your liberty , and I expire imploring your pardon . " The woman was a sacrifice to ' system ; but perhaps in this case the sacrifice is only more obvious and palpable than it is in many others . Many a wife , driven into marriage against her will , undergoes a continuous death in . life , worse to bear than speedy extinction by charcoal . " We know , and could relate , other cases , both in England and -in France , resembling this in everything but the catastrophe . Not long since , a wedding party was assembled in church ; the assemblage probably was as brilliant as that described in the story of the Siecle , the whole party was . as gay , the match was as suitable , and that which was absent in the story just told was present iu the case which we are relating—the young couple were understood to 1 be seriously attached to each other . They approach the altar , the ceremony proceeds ; the dignitary of the Church whose office it is asks the lady , in lier turn , whether she will take the l ) ridegroom to be her wedded husband . Amazement and consternation , when deliberately but distinctly she answers , " No ! " There " , of course , ' a scene . ' What can be her motive ? They can the less guosa , since , instantly afterwards , she disclaims her denial , and implores that the ceremony shall proceed . The indignant family of the bridegroom , however , refuse ; the match is broken off , and tho lady—for tho acono occurs in France—has no refuge but the convent . That scene occurred in France , and yet it occurred in England : with one slight dift ' erenee , we might use exactly tho words which wo have just employed to tell the same story 1 over again , except that tho bride , instead of
suffering- the ceremony to proceed , suddenly exclaimed , in the carriage that was bearing her to church , that her heart failed her—that she must return home . She did return home , leaving everybody to labour at the problem . "What could have induced her to retract , when it was supposed that she . was still attached to "the bridegroom ! What ,
indeed ? The conjectures might be as varied as they are boundless . But that circumstance was not singular even in this country ; and if all the "World and his "Wife held the family meeting which we hare imagined , the same story would be told by many a bride , or nonbride , though with slight differences in the details .
" How [ French 1 we cry at the scene made by- the bride iu church ; yet the motives v ^ hich interrupt the sacrifice at times are not limited to France . There is a certain constancy in these irregularities , and it would be an interesting social inquiry to trace , describe , and embody the anatomy of these anomalies .
60 ' The Ie A Per. [No. 356, Saturday,
60 ' THE IE A PER . [ No . 356 , Saturday ,
This. Picture And This. A King Ots Naple...
THIS . PICTURE AND THIS . A King ots Naples , abhorred by Europe , imprisons the noblest of his subjects in subterranean dungeons , flogs them , tortures them , engages Swiss mercenaries to domineer over them ; is stigmatized by Mr . GrLADstone as the instigator of inhuman cruelties , and by the Times as an abject bigot . His kingdom is full of melancholy and alarm . A soldier of undeniably virtuous character , exasperated by private and public wrongs , impelled by self-devoted enthusiasm , strikes at the King with his bayonet , wounds him , and gives himself lip without a struggle to certaiu death . The King , protected by the love of his subjects and a shirt-of-inail , goes home to be cured of his injury . ' His Majesty ! The soldier is dragged to a dungeon , stripped , bound hand and foot , and hung from a beam , head downwards . For two hours he hangs in this position ; lighted wisps of straw are applied to his head and face . He is then Lung up by the ears—a torture not known , we believe , to Cardinal Caeaffa or tl \ e Blackfeet Iudiaus . He is forced to
dance on burning coals . Boiling water is thrown upon , him , and then cold water . Ilia shoulders ax-e dislocated . He is scourged until his body is discoloured . Next , he is bound upon * a plank , and dragged to the place of execution . There , in the face of day , he is so foully used , that a priest actually strikes his executioner . He is hung by the neck , and the King ' s official clings like a wild cat to his shoulders . c Poor wretch !'
No one denies that Milan o was tortured ; but some people deny that he was tortured in this particular way . "Well , there are four historical methods of wringing false confessions from agony . Perhaps MiiiAKo had his choice . But it is too ghastly a joko to speak of the tenderness of the torturecliamber . Once within that door , what
matters it whether his limbs were bruised in ' the boot , ' or his finger-nails plucked out , or his scalp raised like . that of Beatuice CENor , or his tendons stretched upon a wheel , or his eyes started with a tight cord ? Tho ' poor wretch' hiul pricked ' his Majesty , ' and hia Majesty doos not keep a Cabinet Inferno for nothing .
If Andrews, Then Kinglake. Southampton H...
IF ANDREWS , THEN KINGLAKE . Southampton has elected Mr . Biouatid Andrews . Tho returning oflicer has not yet sent up his name to the House . ' of Commons ; but Sve understand that tho majority of the electors have definitively made up their minds , and that their choico has fallen upon tho townsman who was so many timea their local chief magistrate .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 17, 1857, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17011857/page/12/
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