Co. Westmeath.
_Selling a Wife._--What is the origin of the popular idea, that a man may
legally dispose of his spouse by _haltering_ her, and exposing her for sale
in a public market? Some time ago the custom appears to have been very
prevalent; and only a few months back there was a paragraph in _The Times_,
describing an occurrence of the kind at Nottingham.
French romancers and dramatists have seized upon it as a leading trait of
English society; and in their remarkably-faithful delineations of English
life it is not unusual to find the blue-beard milord Anglais carting milady
to Smithfield, and {430} enlarging upon her points in the cheap-jack style
to the admiring drovers.