The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1874-06-04
ENGLISH MATRIMONIAL CLUBS.
One of Them Gets Into Court and Some
Curious Developments are Made.

One of Them Gets Into Court and Some
Curious Developments are Made:
Clubs, says New York paper, are
usually supposed to retard rather than
advance, marriage. They supply young
men with amusements which keep them
out of the society of young ladies, and
they furnish married men with SO many
excuses for remaining out at night as to
entitle them to be put under strict legal
surveillance as soon as women can en-
force their convictions by their votes
liarly happy inspiration which induced
number of young men in Liverpool,
England, to associate themselves in q
club for the promotion of matrimony.
We say "seem," because q solitary in
stance which has come to light in the
Divorce Court of the results OF matri-
monial selection on the club principle
does not warrant entire confidence in
the plan. The constitution and bylaws
of the Matrimonial Club were not read
in court. The only indication given of
its mode of working is conveyed in the
statement that it was intended to OBJ
tain wives with fortunes for its men,
bers. If we may judge from the men,
Der who has lately attained an unenvi-
able notoriety, the club was composed
of young men who had no fortunes of
their own, but who had no misgivlngs
about their ability to attract the
heiress of the period. In what way the
club net was spread for the golden fish
of which they we're in quest can only be
vaguely conjectured. Perhaps they
paid fees to needy fashionable people
fyr introductions into the desired
circles perhaps they lent out set or
two of club diamonds to enable aspir-
ing clerks to cut figure beyond their
means perhaps they even furnished
suitors likely to be successful with ad-
vances to buy costly presents withal,
subject to repayment after the close OF
the honeymoon.
Whatever were the functions of the
club, to obtain perfectly accurate and
exhaustive information regarding mar
riageable ladies with fortunes, or to
assist in making tight legal "settle-
does not appear to have been among
them. Such, at least, was the expert
ence OF one Watson, q ship-broker's
clerk and member of the Matrimonial
Club, who, some years ago, wooed and
won the daughter of a deceased Liver
pool merchant, possessing s400 year
in her own right, with expectations of
succeeding to more. A few days after
marriage, Watson found that his wife's
fortune was settled on herself, and that
he could not touch or interfere with it.
Greatly disgusted thereat, he asked for
any papers she might have, and finding
AMONG them certiflcate for ce75 in
vested in q building society, he had it
straightway transferred to himself.
After this it frequently struck the noble
minded Watson that E400 year was
very paltry sum, and that could he only
have few thousands all to himself, he
could distinguish himself in business
HaYing failed to obtain this, he applied
himself to the cultivation of matri-
monial brutality. He took to drinking,
and to the habitual use of violent Ian
guage; he took to keeping bad company;
then he proceeded to answer his wife's
protests against this sort of thing by
such cheerful pranks as tearing skin
from her arm, biting her in the neck,
grinding her beads into powder, and
biting piece out of glass. One night
he came in the worse for liquor, and,
swallowing three bottles of champagne,
fell back dead drunk, condemning his
wife to the delightful vigil of Watching
him all night. Three to five years en-
durance of this kind of life naturally
wearied out his wife's patience, and,
after a narrow escape from being MUIR
dered with a carving-knife during one
of her husbands drunken fits, she f.
nally left him.
After this event, the ex-member of
the Liverpool Matrimonial Club de-
parted for New Orleans, taking with
him child who formed the sole living
issue of this ill-starred union. He was
undefended in the suit brought by his
wife for a judicial separation, but it is
hardly possible that the proverb about
the absent being always in the wrong
should apply to his case. His wife's
testimony was fully corroborated, and
the daughters of our sunny South may
safely be recommended to beware of
this insinuating person by the name of
Watson, who has lately arrived in their
midst. The field for matrimonial clubs
for the trapping of heiresses is, we sus-
pect, less extensive among the society
upon which he has bestowed. himself
than on his native shores.