The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-11-19
Matrimony Under Difficulties,

Matrimony Under Difficulties.
A correspondent Of the San Francisco Bulletin
writing from the Connecticut Valley, discourse
thus on matters matrimonial
o. One of the sensations on the way was a wed
ding on the top OF Mount Holyoke, an eminenc
a thousand feet above the Connecticut river ant
overlooking Its banks. There have been wed
diDgs in balloons and in the Mammoth Cave;
believe there was once a wedding in Bergen tun
mel on the Erie Railwa-. and it not unfreuuentl,
happens that parties are joined in happy OF
unhappy matrimony on railway trains, and or
u steamboats,. % Aufew years ago, L heard of q
romantic couple that wanted to be married at the
sound bottom Of Long Island in diving bell useC
by n wrecking company, bur they could not iin1
a clergyman who would take the risk of going III
4 a direction the reverse of H~eayenward. The
wedding on Mount Holyoke was somewha ro
mantle, and il would have been more so, only il
happens that the lady who lost her identify and
became Mrs. Somebody, was the daughter of the
man. who keeps the hotel on the top of the
mountain. The whole party. clergyman, friends.
4 invited guests, wedding presents, dinner, and
]! accompanying documents were draTnin carriages
to the foot of the mountain and then hoisted up
an inclined plain TO the summit of the mountain.
How is that for high?
WEDDING UNDER COMMISSIONS,
/ somewhat fear that the married pair who
were launched into the very uncertain sea of
matrimony will be in doubt as to who is who
when they come to settle down into the plain
business of life. The lady's name is Frances,
though she is k~nown'amOng her friends as Fanny,
I but in swinging her off, the clergyman had to do
the square thing and call her Frances, and the
masculine victim is called Frank, but the name
his parents gave him is Francis, and the ~offciat-
ing dominic couldn't go back of it, and he went
through his difficulty as serenely as a burglar
would go through an empty house and never SO
much as winked when he said g You Francis,
take Frances TO be your lawful and welded -
/ declare, i have forgotten which way it was,
only 1 know that the theory was that one of
them took the other for better and worse, and l
hope 1T will not prove a great deal worse than
better. Then there was another unpleasant stu
alton about the affair, and that is the line between
two towns runs through the middle Of the house,
and as the law says the marriage license must be
taken out in the town where the parties are
married, they had to draw a fine point on it, and
more than all that, the line ran through the
middle of the parlor, selected as the place of
EXECUTION, and this made things awkward IN But
they made a place for the parson in a bay window
and put the culprits in front ofhim, This put them
fairly In South Hadley, Massachusetts, and in
the semicircle of spectators, somewhere in South
Hadley, while some were in plain Hadley without
any South. If the bridegroom ever comes nome
with a brick in his ~chapeau, L don't believe he
will be able to tell how and where be was mar
ried and which of them was married to the other.
A MUCH MARRIED MAN. q
While my mind is on marriages the printer
will see that my hand is unsteady and as blind as
a fish from the Mammoth Cave. I will tell YOU
of a very odd sort of wedding that happened out
in Minnesota and Iowa, for it happened in both
of these States eight or ten years ago. r A settler
named Jenkins lived in Minnesota just over the
line from Iowa. A wandering timber-Inan named
Preston had taken a fancy to Jenkins daughter.
He concluded at length to marry her, and as
Mary and pa were willing, all the backwoods
neighbors were invited at the proper time. Old
Jenkins did the thing up handsome in the way
of supper, and by nine or ten o o'clock all except
the newly married ones and the parson were
reasonably and fairly drunk. The parson wasn't
over sober as old Jenkins had forced him to
swallow n whisky punch, which acted on his
unaccustomed nerves, and made his head feel like
a steam saw-mill with all the modern improve
ments. While in this condition somebody rnti-
mated that he wasn't a regular square-toed,
ordained minister, but only an exhorter, who
had no business to go around marrying people.
The love of truth and the effects of the whisky
made him acknowledge the corn at once, but he
excused himself on the ground that he thought it
would be just as we'll, and besides there was no
minister within twenty-five miles.
Old jenkins was mad and when he learned the 7
situation, he few around like a schoolboy with a
hornet in his trowsers leg. Preston and his bride
had retired up the ladder to. the loft that con-
stituted their wedding chamber and had been left !
to themselves for half an hour or more. Jenkins
mounted the ladder and yelled to them to come
down, and impaired the astounding information
that they were not married at all. He explained T
the situation, and as soon as the pair could dress
they descended looking as sheepish as one could
imagine. Among the assembled guests there
a justice of the peace and he was induced by
the payment of the usual fee to splice the couple
according to the legal form. When the cere-
mony was over, there were fresh drinks ali round,
and Mr.. and Mrs. Preston went up stairs to bed
with the information from Preston that he would
put. a head on that swindling parson, (who had
walked of. his fee.) 49, 1TF sA
But the whisky punches, and the conversation
On the affair led to a new revelation. The house
was In Minnesota and the justice who had per-
ormed the ceremony was a Justice of the peace
or Iowa, and therefore be was Of no account,in
States He himself told jenkins Sef the I
tate of affairs and then there was another scene .
Up the ladder the latter went and called out in a
'oice that could be heard a mile or two.
-E Gitl1ps both of you and come down here
gain. You amt married."
Old man." said Preston as he came near the
OPP of the ladder, g if youI don't clear out and
cave Mary and me alone, I'll just. break yer ]
cad There's been enough of this yere fooling
Jenkins backed a step or two down the ladder
nd parleyed with his son-in-law the result was
hat the twain again anne down the ladder and |
ne whole party went down the road about half a
nile to the jurisdiction of the justice where he
ronOunced themi mana and wife this time certain,
ure. 1t was sometime past midnight when
William Preston, Esq; accompanied by Mrs.
'reston, to whom,hew was legally UNMARRIED, mounted
he ladder to the loft of the mansion of MIR. 4
enkins, and retired to the rest which by that
inc they very much needed, while their friends
the room below proceeded to get az drunk as =
he quality of the backwoods whisky would allow, !
nd it willallow a great deal. sd
raOsA4 II =
Clafin, the aBrokeress, interviewed.
Mics Fanny Clafin, of the New York firm of i
Enndhul ~ Clafin. WAS In CINCINNATI tha otho-