The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1866-06-08

Travellers and conductors are beginning to
notice on the railroads more than usual num-
Der of spring and summer wedding tourists.
Ready money is abundant, and to just that
sort Of amount that few men in these days can
find any more useful or profitable Investment
of it than getting married. Those batcke>
lors, old and young, who have made their
fortunes within the last three years in oil or
coal, or railroad stocks, or wal, contracts, find
this q convenient season for resting few
months, taking wife and making marriage
tour of Europe. spreading themselves in Paris,
and doing the Great Exhibition, Italy, Great
Britain, and tho rest Of the world in half a
year. These tourists get out of sight of the
American world, and are not worth our no.
tice here, for with them all is conventional
and regulated simply by one consideration
the amount of money they have to spend.
Jenkins arranges it all and publishes it in the
newspapers
But there is another far more interesting
and unsophisticated class who daily catch the
eye of the conductor, and are recognized by
him and all old travellers on railroads and
steamers at gance-the bridegrooms and
hundred miles on. their tours, followed to the
cars by weeping, yet happy, bald-headed
fathers. On all the routes leading to and from
Niagara are these to be seen. They have
private suits of rooms pre.engaged at all the
stopping places, and have evidently the idea
that they have SO arranged matters that they
are not and cannot be known as bridal tour
lists. This is not that they are ashamed of
each other, but simply that their endowment
is in each others society, and they do not
want to be criticised and remarked upon by
profane strangers. So they fancy they are
travelling incog. And yet how easy it is to the
careful eye to tell how many days, or even
hours, they have been married, by the very
pains they take to seem either like old mar
ried folks or cosins, as they promenade on the
deck of the steamer, or sit ever so demurely
in the cars.
Their dress detects them in part. 1t is all
so neat, Symmetrical, and new. If the parties
have good taste. there is not particle of
showiness about their attire. All glitter and
display are laid aside. and she who was a
fashionable belle last winter and drove out
in such splendid satins and silks to her shop
ping, is positively more like Quaker in a
simple travelling dress of mouse or drab
color. Often the young culprits pretend for
while to be playing at lovers or Irritation,
but it will not do. There is too much quiet
happiness in their eyes for sparkle and wit and
repartee; too much softness and tenderness
in their confidential whispers, and such sense
of the possession of each other that none in
the cars are deceived for five minutes. Gene.
rally the bridegroom discovers this first, and
throws his arm easily round the shoulder of
his wife, as much as to say defiantly to the
curious, "You cannot tell but what we have
been married these many years" Not tell I?
There is sort of outlines and slyness in
Che way that arm steals round, first on top Of
the seat back, then gradually closer, and a
silent, pleased. unperceiving acquescence on
the part of the bride. Indeed, it is she who
tells the tale most quickly. The broad gague
seats are too broad. She seems to prefer the
narrower Pennsylvania measure; and if you
sit on any seat back of them, it may be no.
ticed that the lady's shoulders are not even
they incline just little, and unpercevedly,
while she faneies she is sitting uprightly, to
her broad set and bearded partner. For a
few hours they thus travel. but. in the long
run. the head gravitates to the husband S sup.
porting shoulder. and there it will nestle inno-
Gently and confdingly in the repose of new.
found faith, as wellas the happiness of honest.
truthful love.
Sometimes, in spite Of all precautions, a
tress or two of rich black hair will get loose
and fall down. But that bride stresses are SO
exquisitey silky and combed and polished,
that there is an order and neatness in their
very disorder and abandon. 1t is, in fact,
the confusion of the high and yirtuous self
respect and honest pride of the maiden STEP
ping out into new faith. And these young
folks fancy themselves lost in the crowd-un-
noticed, unknown, and with the secret tina,
they are but just married their own alone
Blessed innocents But even those who dis
cover them must wish them God speed in
their new path, which may lead to happiness
or sorrow, as they start right OF begin wrong
-lotf}udclDhiu Ien0er