The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-29 00:00:00

THE MA TRIMONIAL SCREW.

Sometimes it is the wife who is put under the
screw of her husband's peculiarities ; sometimes it
is the husband who is martyred by his wife's ex-
travagances. I know.a little woman whose life is
a perpetual sacrifice to blinds and boots, and another
who will surely never rest in her grave because of
the creases in the tablecloths, and a certain silver
tankard which never is clean, never was clean, and
never will be clean, yet which the maid polishes
twice a week with rouge, and rubs up every day
with " chamoy leather." My little friend who is
under the screw in the matter of blinds, has long
ago been squeezed fiat and shapeless ; but then her
husband wields a very formidable machine, and
knows how to give the extra turn scientifically. A
third is under the screw of her husband's disorder
and irregularity, having to subdue herown instincts
of order and organisation and clear methodical
punctuality, in obedience to his demand for muddle,
and being obliged to neglect her own life in the
vain attempt to stitch up the rags and rents of his.
In point of fact she is held in the tightest vice of
all, her whole life being passed in a state of uncom-
fortable pressure and inharmonious servitude, where
she has not even the wages of service—the plea-
sure of accomplishing the work she undertakes to
fulfil. As a /tile I should say that wives are more
frequently under the screw than husbands, and
with a larger proportion of smashed vitality, but
sometimes they take their revenge, and a woman's
revenge, like most things feminine, is apt to be ex-
cessive and by no means well considered. When
they once get hold of the screw-handle, pray how
much nerve and muscle do you think is left
entire P And do they ever leave off turning
until their victim is a mere superficies—a flat-
tened bit of cardboard bearing but a remote resem-
blance to a man ? The screw of old maiden primness
which squeezes down all exuberance and indivi-
duality and naturalness and moral richness, as if
all men ought to be pulped into one homogeneous
whole, and then run off into moulds like so many
jellies of the same shape : the screw of housekeep-
ing meanness, where there are barbed points and
salt to rub into their wounds, over and above the
lawful amount of pressure : the screw of feminine
gadding, which cannot rest quietly at home and
will not gad abroad alone, but must have a compa-
nion to fly in the same concentric circles: the screw
of sullen taciturnity, which will not open its own
t lipsrar
itwo
ssep, etahke,
sacnr de
wf o
or
fb icdhsa
I went with your life or
you keep silent, not if yttoeurintog,owpehnicyhocuarnsn;oetol;
ne
horse power, whence
reputation; are not all these thhuesmeasncrseowusl ocfanhiusnsuderedi;
rightful form, or with due proportion of numbers ?
The screw takes t helifße-obulnood."d out of them.--
Dickens's " the Year

NAPOLEON'S POWER.—Napoleon the Great had
a singular power of making great men, or, in other words,
discovering and eliciting the capacity with which they are
endowed by nature. His Generals and Ministers of State
had a greatness of their own, which
and disciplined by his peculiar
agency, was
hence, iy netd ewe
inads enas
ollteade fmoaiertrthe-
reflection of the ability of their chief;
ments, civil and military, he was served with u d
a marvellous
waerlml
soeneL,
efficiency, seeming to be like an infinite multiplication of
himself, which astonished the world, and was, in fact, a
h
otfo actionresult afrnodmatbe uniformityforeeaat
ofofa
susicucgesles,mthinadt
rather
than the divided agency of many.
MELANCHOLY OCCURRENCE ON LOCHLOMOND.
—On Saturday forenoon three yonng men, named respec-
tively James and Gavin Morton (brothers), machine-
printers, residing in Alexandria, and James M'Ewan, a
field-worker, residing in Bonhill, left Balloch in a small
sailing boat, belonging to Gavin Morton, for a day's plea-
sure sailing on Lochlomond. They proceeded in safety as
far as Luss, which place they lett in the evening on their
return home. They were all quite sober, it is said. The
weather being somewhat squally, they were cautioned on
leaving Luss as to the danger of setting their sails, a caution
which they unfortunately did not attend to, as, shortly after
leaving, the sails were observed hoisted, Nothing more
was heard of them till Sunday morning; when the boat was
found lying on the beach on the north side of the loch,
nearly opporite to Lusa, with keel uppermost, the
watery
man, no doubt, having met with an untimely
anddof boats,
grave. All Sunday and Monday large numbers of which
plied by willing hands, were in search of the bodies,En,s
have as yet not been recovered. On MendasBs mile above
cap was found floating on the water about
Lusa. The ages of the unfortunate men raged from 25 to
30 years. They were all tuunarrild•us,
through all the
WHAT FAITH WILL DO. T
es of the old world, the
mythologies and symbol
which, begot in the
pieniagrraosu, t, adding to the wild,
of that freshness of feeling,
green
beauty
infancy of the world,
are
eand symbol, which characterises
that love of allegory In these devotions there
is man.
in the individual
infancy
character which shames the contracted
.8 of
is a largeness thecsoenttidn)ourialglrnfoalll f
piety of our own _ day and generation, and much as we
may dread the features of those ancient faiths, and
shrink,
horrorstruck, from their details of barbarity and
absurdity,
we must at least confess that faith had there a
home.
The legend of Rawana the good Brahmin, exhibits,
in a powerful light, the sincerity of that age of icicle. It
was the wont of Rawana to offer daily 100 flowers to the
god Ixora ; and once, to prove his zeal, the god secretly
took one from the sacrifice of flowers, and then complained
that the gift was too small. Rawana counted the flowers,
and finding only 99, offered one of his eyes to supply its
place; when the god, convinced of his piety, restored the
flower, and blessed him for his confiding faith.—Hibberci' s
"Brambles and Bay Leaves."
the bent
THE THIRD PARTY.—In chemistry, the
Th
way to separate two bodies is to introduce ao . _ the
same holds true in other departmentl T in_.eircreecTis to
distance between a pair of lovers, all.that's, f e6.7i:t
ea
candle
let 'Willie walk into the back parlour/ with a "
in his hand.