Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1871-02-09
Playing With Fire.

1 ~ 80 = - &
'Itis. a very solemn thing to be mar.
ried, said serious mother to her child
sit is much more solemn nat to be. -
responded the judicious infant. The
latter view of the solemnity of marriage
appears to be growing alarmingly pop.
ular in the United States. A few DAYS
ago a Western paper announced that q
young gentleman and a young lady
who were only slightly acquainted were
out buggy-riding, and the young man
defied his companion to stop at the Jus
tees and get married. She pluckily
accepted the gage Of combat-anet inn.
agining he would stand his ground ~
and he who had made the proposition
through simple Stiffness could not see
his way clear to graceful retreat. Sc
the twospirited idiots stood up and
were made one, and drove home some
what thoughtfully with a marriage
certificate in their hands that more than
filled them. They parted at the lady's
door with constrained courtesy, and the
young wife, as the facetious annalisi
expresses it, "has just been measured
for divOrce.o - - -, sl.l -ss 8
A Pittsburgh journal records another
case which Is just twice as silly. Two
young men called upon two sisters, and
in the course of the conversation, the
ice of decorum having melted away be-
fore the shafts of that "nOn-humOrous
humOr of uncurbed youth which How
ellis has so perfectly characterized, the
young people began to dare each other
to do all sorts of unadyisable things. a
defiance to immediate matrimony was,
of course promptly made and accepted
for the staple Jest of that class of person
is of rings and bridecake. One10f the
zanies went out for parson, and the
two couples were married with much
giggling. Of course, after spree like
that, there was no SAVIOR of further con-
versatiOn, and the husbands went home
and the wives to bed In the morning
the clerical hierophant sent in the legal
attestation of his last nights perform
ance, and the humorous quartette found
themselves reduced to duo. But that
no element Of ahsurdity should be wan
ting TO the event, each man was mar
ried to the others sweetheart, detail
which had been overlooked as altOgeth-
er unimportant in the mad hilarity OF
the ceremony.
This mOnkeyish trifing with the
most m0mentOuS matters may seem In
credible at first sight. But, in fact, it is
the most natural thing in the world. A
young fellow not much accustomed to
society, positively loses his senses in
the company of lively girls /; and if we
may believe what the daughters of Eve
say of each other, there is none too
much wisdom on that SUMMER side OF
The world. Some one once criticised
Thackeray for making the conversation
of his young people silly. Nonsense,
replied the great truth teller sit can
uot be made silly enough" The talk
of young people who are somewhat in
innate is not of much higher order
than the inarticulate murmuring of a
mother to her baby. In those circles
where knowledge of the world has
brought some idea of self command,
this amiable folly is confined to words.
Cut among the mass of youths and
maidens of city and country, juxtaposi-
tion and high spirits are liable at any
moment to fix caprice in irrevocable
acts. Nothing but opportunity is ne
ceSSary for that. And unless the whole
world, outside of our limits, is wrong,
opportunity is by far too frequent, in
the present structure of human society.