The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-10-12
THE woelxa.

emplary Mr.. Bull he holds to it with a per-
~tinacity that would be no discredit to the OBJ
stinate sex itself. Consider the bill to legal
t ize marriage with a deceased wife's sister,
which has been passed again and again by the
{ Commons, only to be rejected by the House
of Lords. From the persistent obstinacy
with which a large class of Englishmen insist
upon the passage of this bill one would al
most imagine that England was populated IN
the main by a tribe of forlorn widowcrs, each
having a good-leoking ex-sister-ln-law whom
he is prevented by the statute prohibiting
such unions from installing as the second
divinity to preside over his home. But we
need not be told that no such condition Of
affairs exists. In England, as elsewhere,
timid men are to be found, and in the case Of
a timid widewer what more natural than that
he should prefer. by a second marriage into
the same family, to secure a continuation OF
the evils he knew rather than by contracting
an altogether new alliance to rush blindly
into dangers and evils he knew nothing OF.
Such a resolution is strictly in accordance
with the dictates of the highest prudence, but
there are counter considerations through
which the House OF LORDS is very properly
induced to withhold its sanction from the bill
rendering possible the carrying out of any
such pretty little domestic programme. The
dignifed members of that august parliament
airy assemblage haye constantly in mind the
fact that it IS their duty to oppose all laws
through whose operation any one class of
men would enjoy a decided advantage over
their fellow subjects. Accordingly when they
saw in the deceased wife's sister bill " ali
insldious attempt to give the Yidowers a de-
cided advantage over the bachelors of the
land, they very properly put their collective
foot down with marked emphasis upon the
proposition. you may marry as often as
you please, gentlemen" was the drift of the
response to the waiting widowers, marry as
often as you please and the law permit, but
let us hear of no unmanly Sinking of the
perils OF mother-iu-law A bachelor in tax
ing a wife must always bow his neck to the
mother-in-law yoke, and a bill by which a
wldower is permitted to remarry into the
family of his deceased wife can only be &C.
copied as a cowardly eXpedient for allowing
two or more separate matrimonial trips to be
made with the infiction of mother-in-law
properly allowed to one, and to any such
scheme our devotion to the British constitu-
ton impels us to offer a l united and vigorous
opposition" Aud this opposition has been
fatal to the law, for even when championed
by the Prince of Wales the bill was rejected.
But i'll this happy country we manage
things differently. Here the disconsolate
widower seeking some one to sooth his ach-
ing brow may re-lnarry into the same family
as often as he can persuade anyone to have
him or until the daughter supply becomes
exhausted, and the aw will never say him
nay. Even the political widower is under no
restraint in this respect. BY a "political
widOWer " we mean a defeated candidate and
we think the parallel is sufficiently close
to be accepted without challenge when we
compare the candidate whose cherished object
of existence-his political ambition-has
been suddenly dissolved in death with the
widower whose bereavement has wonderfully
increased his appreciation of The many graces
OF mind and person possessed by his pretty
sister-in-law. Without any great stretch of
imagination the political party may be pic
tured as the buxon mater Jtamiiias whose
manageable daughters are the campaigns
" brought out from time to time under her
c~haperonage. The would-be bridegroom is
the candidate, who courts Mile. Campaign
with commendable assiduity. If successful
he effects a happy union, becomes the pride
of his mother-in-law' heart, and with the
bride he has won goes off to Congress, to Hell
ena, or to "some other seaport" on his we'd
ding tour. If defeated, however, then our
candidate is properly to be considered a polit-
ical widower, and in the subsequent counting
operations of such widowers a great diversity
of plan and purpose is to be observed. Some
love was the daughter of an honest working
woman-say workingman's party-is found
to have forgotten all about the family of his
early flame by the time the counting fit comes
on h M the second time. His next attempt
at a matrimonial alliance is apt to be a grab
at one of old Mrs. Republicans daughters,
whom he chooses to the neglect and contempt
of the family with which he had first sought
alliance. Widowers of this class in making
their matrimonial selections are never actu-
ated by any lofty principle of family pride.
What they look after is the dover, the dot as
our French friends call it, and so long as the
regular little dot is to be secured they are
ready to marry anybody who comes along
without asking any questions, but at the same
time giving pledges Of any kind or description
that may be required. Widowers of this
class make very undesirable sons-in-law; and
il is invariably found that mnmhars of tLo