|A LONDON paper tells how when a certain Dean of Chester was all ready
to perform a marriage between persons of high standing, the bride was
very late. When she reached the altar, to the question, "Wilt thou take
this man?" she replied in most distinct tones, "I will not." On retiring
with the Dean to the vestry, she explained that her late arrival was
not her fault, and that the bridegroom had accosted her on her arrival
at the church with, "G--d d----n you, if this is the way you begin
you'll find it to to your cost when you're my wife."
That was no way to open up a honeymoon. They are not doing that way
recently, and in the bon ton and dishabille select and etcetera
society of the more metropolitan cities, such a remark would at once be
considered as outre and Corpus Christi.
The groom should stop and consider that sometimes the most annoying
accidents occur to a young lady in dressing. Suppose for instance that
in stooping over to button her shoe she breaks a spoke in her corset and
has to send it to the blacksmith shop, do you think that the groom is
justified in kicking over the altar and dragging his affianced up the
aisle by the hair of the head? We would rather suggest that he would
not. There are other distressing accidents which may happen at such
a time to the prospective bride, but we forbear to enter into the
harrowing details. No man with the finer feelings of a gentleman will
ever knock his new wife down in the church and tramp on her, until he
knows to a reasonable degree of certainty that he is right. It may be
annoying, of course, to the groom to stand and look out of the window
for half an hour while the bride is allaying the hemorrhage of a pimple
on her nose with a powder puff, but then, great hemlock! if a man can't
endure that and smile, how will he behave when the clothesline falls
down and the baby gets a kernel of corn up its nose?
These are questions which naturally occur to the candid and thinking
mind and command our attention. The groom who would swear at his wife
for being a few minutes late at the altar, would kill her and throw her
stiffened remains over into the sheep corral if she allowed the twins to
eat crackers in his bed and scatter the crumbs over his couch.
Let us look these matters calmly in the face, and not allow ourselves to
drift away into space.