Morning journal and courier., 1880-07-31
Seven Times a Widow at Forty.

For the benefit of that venturesome class of people who, like those possessed of an ire sistible desire to risk their lives among sav- age African tribes, would-the sad shipwrecks of so many of their friends notwithstanding venture on the treacherous sea of matrimo- ny; for their benefit, l repeat it. it becomes an imperative duty for me to make known a unique chance of connubial bliss which has lately come to my notice. It is of Katharina Chasna, of Verbeo, in Upper Hungary, that speak, and let him that would secure prize in the marriage market hasten to the land of pomade and paprika, and withouta moments delay make her his own. For time is press ing; she has often been snapped up, and will in all probability be very soon snapped up again A wife who thoroughly understands her social duties, and who is perfect in her paces, is, I take it, universally acknowledged to be ''desideratum;" and if the lady have the honor to introduce to public notice does not fulfill this condition, then nobody ever will. For, like her sister in Holy Writ, she has had seven husbands, and the last one has just died. Here however, the simile comes to end; for instead of the sevenfold wid ow following her lords and masters, Kathari- na Chasna is as sound as bell, and if what is generally said be true, has but one anxiety in life and that is to get married-'' ''sobaid als moglich '" Our heroine-surely she must be a heroine-first married at seventeen She began her crusade against the opposite modestly enough for she selected shoemak- CT, who, however, succumbed to consump- tion at the end of fifteen months; he hardly lasted as long as one of his own pairs of shoes-best quality No 2 was a much tougher customer. He entered the list at the ripe age of eighty-seven, heldout thirteen years, and died fortnight after his one hun dredth birthday; how long he would have lasted under favorable conditions is an inter esting but now bootless speculation. This affair so preyed on good Katharina's mind that she was fain to marry within the month for consolation, and this time it was widow CT, who, however, came to watery grave, for he died of dropsy after four years of bliss. All this i'll luck was beginning to tell on Katharine's spirits, and she determined now to invest in something warranted to last" She lent modest ear to the burning tale of stalwart farmer of twenty-eight; but, alas. he succumbed to an accident" almost before the expiration of the honey moon (whether hescommitted suicide is not clear will spare you the next three hus- bands, the last of whom died on Wednesday, Suffice 1t that fate seemed to pursue them all and hustled them one after the other into the 'fgreat unknown" If Katharina does not marry soon it will be her own fault, for several suitors after her. Although be- tween forty and forty-five, she is still strik- ingly handsome, has splendid figure, abun- dant black hair, and does not look day over thirty-fve. But, an, well day! she has cast her flashing eyes on youth of twenty one who is himself over head and years in love with some one else. The mayor of the seven, is said to have become quite childish on the subject of Katharina, and humbly mumbles his suit. She will doubtless take him out of 'tpique"