The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1879-10-24
A Test Of Affection.

What originally caused Mr.. McGinnis
OF Clinton, Illinois, to doubt the sinceri-
ty of Mrs. McGinnis's love for him is not
known. The pair had lived together in
comparative peace and happiness for
nine years. To be sure, Mr.. McGinnis
had sometimes expressed annoyance at
the cold dinners which were set before
him on washing day, and had occasion
ally remarked that all women are crazy
on the subject of housekeeping; and
there had been occasions when Mrs. Nc
Ginnis had appealed to the mop-handle
to enforce her views, or had INDUCED in
the wild justice of the stOve-id when her
feelings had been violently lacerated.
Nevertheless, the welded life of the Nc
Ginnisses was on the whole successful,
and their neighbors would have been
greatly surprised had any one limited
that Mrs. McGinnis was not warmly at
tached to her husband.
When Mr.. McGinnis began to ask
himself if he was quite sure that his wife
loved him, his peace of mind vanished.
He is a middle-aged, respectable man,
engaged in the manufacture of hats,
and entirely dependent for his happiness
upon his beloved wife. No sooner had
the unlucky thought entered his head
that perhaps she did not really care for
him than he began to notice any quanti-
ty of tribes, nearly as light as atmos-
pheric air, which to his morbid imag-
nation seemed evidences of his wife's
GOODNESS. The cold dinner on Mondays
and the semi-annual housekeeping
gradually presented themselves to him
in the light of heartless persecu-
tons. If Mrs. McGinnis went to
bed early, he assumed that she did
it to rid herself of his society, and if she
sat up late, he decided that she was in
fluenced by desire to watch him and
prevent him from exercising his marital
right of snoring in his chair. He i'm
agined that she manifested, in countless
ways, both her want of love for him and
the hypocrisy with which she tried to
conceal it; and thus looking upon her
who was the wife of his bosom and al
SO, presumably, of his shoulders and the
back of his neck-with suspicion, he be-
came a miscrably unhappy man.
In the course of time it seemed to Mr..
McGinnis that it would be we'll to test
his wife's affection. In pursuance of
this idea, he devised various little plans
of more or less ingenuity. On one oc-
casion he walked Mrs. McGinnis up in
the middle of the night andi in a whisper
informed her that he was dying. The
good woman promptly arose, and, pre-
pairing a mustard plaster, placed it
where it could do the most good, and
exhibited sOlicitude that was quite
satisfactory. The unfortunate mar, how-
ever, was not contented, and tried the
experiment second time, whereupon
Mrs. McGinnis remarked, "Fiddle-
sticks!"- which was heartless as well
as irrelevant-and told him to go to
sleep and he would be all right in the
morning. Being thus again filled with
suspicion as to the state of his wife's
affections, Mr.. McGinnis tried further
tests. He entered the house hurriedly
one evening, and informed her that he
had been shot at by three ruffians, who
swore that they would kill him sooner
or later.
Instead of bursting into tears and
begging him to take care of his precious
life, Mrs. McGinnis calmly remarked:
I" John, want you to sign the pledge
this minute, and don't you ever dare to
come home in such a shameful state
again." and thereupOn compelled her
who was far more sober than
the average member of an elective ju-
dietary, to then and there SIGN total
abstinence pledge. Still the miserable
man hankered for further tests, and he
even took the ill-judged liberty of inform
ing his wife that his health was becOm-
ing undermined by cold meat, that if
she really cared whether he lived or
died she must give him hot dinner on
She told him if he wanted to
die he might, but she did not propose to
take the boiler off from the fire and
thus interfere with the washing, in or
der to pamper any silly fool that lived,
" and the sooner you make up your
mind to that, John McGinnis, the bet
ter, and don't let me see you coming
into the kitchen Mondays, if YOU know
what's best for yourself,
In the opinion of MIR. McGinnis these
tests all pointed to lack of affection
which was to the last degree painful to
him. He ceased for time to make any
further experiments, and assumed sad,
look, which he rather thought
would move the heart of a brass mon
key, had there been a metallic animal
of that species in the neighbOrhood. 1t
finally occurred to him that suicide
would be the thing to excite any slight
particle of pity that might still linger in
his wife's bosom. 1t SO happened that |
he lived in three-story house, and the
joint bedroom of himself and Mrs. Nc
Ginnis was the two-pair-back room.
One afternoon he mounted to the third |
story, carrying the clothes-line with |
him.
He fastened one end of the line around |
his body, just under the arms, and the |
other end to the leg of u bedstead. Then
opening the window, he carefully low
cred himself until he dangled opposite
his bedroom window, in which situation
he attracted his wife's attention. That
estimable woman was at last convinced |
that her husband was in earnest, and
hat he had actually hanged himself.
Filled with horror, she sprang to the
and remembering that person
yVhO had hanOo6 hiuco1f cbc,,1d -, <,,,x