New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-02-11
A Test Of Affection.

A Test Of Affection.
What originally caused Mr.. McGin.
mis- to doubt the sincerity of Mrs. Nc
Ginnis' 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
annoyance at the cold din
ners which were set before him on
day, and had occasionally re-
marked that all women are crazy on
the subject of use-cleaning; and
there had been occasions when Mrs.
McGinnis had appealed to the mop
handle to enforce her views, or had in
dulged in the wild Justice of the stove
lid when her feelings had been violent
ly lacerated. Nevertheless, the welded
life of the McGinnises was on the whole
successful, and their neighbors would
have been greatly surprised had any
one limited that Mrs. McGinnis was not
warmly attached to her husband.
When Mr.. McGinnis began to ask
himself if he was quite sure that his
wife loved him, his peace of mind van
ished. He is 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 quantity of trihes, nearly as light
as atmospheric air, which to his morbid
imagination seemed evidence of his
wife's GOODNESS. The cold dinner on
Mondays and the semi-annual house
cleaning gradually presented them
selves to him in the light of heartless
prosecutions. 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
influenced by a desire to watch him and
prevent him from exercising his marital
right of snoring in his chair. He inn
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 with
suspicion, he became miserably un-
happy man.
In course of TIME it seemed to Mr.,
McGinnis that it would be well 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 and in q wbis-
per informed her that he was dying,
The good woman promptly arose, and,
preparing mustard plaster, placed it
where it would do the most coed, and
exhibited solicitude that was quite
satisfactory. The unfortunate man.
however, was not contented, and tried
the experiment second time, where
upon Mrs. McGinnis remarked, cid
dlesticks!'- which was heartless, az
we'll as irrelevant-and told him to 90
to sleep and he would be all right in the
morning. Being again filed with sus-
picion as to the state of his wife's at
tections, 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 re-
marked: "John, want you to sign the
pledge this minute, and don't you ever
dare to come home in such q shameful
state again." and thereupon compelled
her husband, who was far more sober
than the average members of an cleo
tive judiciary, to then and there sign q
total-abstinence pledge. Still the mis-
cradle man hankered for further tests,
and he even took the ill-judged liberty
of informing his wife that his health was
becoming undermined by cold meat;
that if she really cared whether he lived
or died she must give him q hot dinner
on Mondays. She told him that 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 order to pamper with any silly fool
that ever lived, "and the sooner you
make up your mind to that, John Nc
Ginnis, the better, and don't let me see
you coming into the kitchen Mondays,
II you know what's best for yourself"
In the opinion of Mr.. 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 despairing look, which he rather
thought would move the heart of q
brass monkey, had there been a metal
ic animal of that species in the neigh
borhood. It finally occurred to him
that suicide would be the thing to ex-
cite 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. McGinnis 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 to
the leg of a bedstead. Then opening
the window he carefully lowered HIM
self until he dangled opposite his bed.
room window, in which situatlIg he at
tracted his wife's attention. That estl-
mable woman was at last convinced
that her husband was in earnest, and
that he had actually hanged himself.
Filled with horror, she sprang to the
window, and remembering that a per-
son who has hanged himself should bs
cut down as soon as possible, she cut
the cord with q large pair Re scissors.
Mr.. McGinnis fell heavily to s.,ss.- ,und,
and when he was subsequent s>s.x,
up he had just strength enough le.c.: n,
remark that at last he was satisfied.
and then hastily expired.
This incident affords valuable pre-
cedent to men who desire to know II
their wives really love them. 1t would,
however, be well for any husband who
proposes to hang himself to so manage
The affair that his feet shall be but few
inches from the ground. When, in
such circumstances, he is cut down by
3 Mortified wife, he will be none tina