The Portland daily press., 1883-01-09
Simply the Skeletons" Wife.
The True Love that Led to the Marriage
of Beauty No. IL and the Living Skale-
ton.

The True Love that Led to the Marriage
of Beauty No. II and the Living Sksle-
ton.
When Isaac w. Sprague, the living skeleton
of Bunnell's Museum, was told that Beauty
No. 16 had taken the prize in the competition
lately closed in New York, he burst into tears,
dashed his hat upon the floor, ratified his bones
and declared that the judges were not fit to de-
eide question of beauty He would have
made different decision, and have awarded
the first prize to Il, Miss Minnie Thompson.
Miss Thompson was, indeed, very prepossess-
ing young woman, and with sensible appre-
citation of her own charms, she was piqued ct
not receiving the 800, or even the $50 that was
given to the beauty who carried off the second
prize. The skeleton smiled upon her as soon
as he had dried her tears and she was con-
soled. Not that the skeleton is the highest
type of manly beauty. His arms are bones,
hardly concealed by the skin that covers
them, and his legs seem almost too thin to
carry even his sttenuated form. But his face
has a frank and independent expression, and
though upon man of ordinary proportions it
might show a somewhat unbecomiDg promi-
hence of cheek and chin bones, as com pared
with the outline of his frail body, it appears to
be positively fat. His head is surmounted
with fine shock of brick-colored hair and a
goatee and moustache of the same hue adorn
his eountenance.
Miss Thompson was attracted to him at
once. She said she didn't like fat men, and
looked upon the Hon. William NJ. Evaris as
The beau ideal of grace. At least she SO con-
sdered him until she was sought by the skele-
ton who, to her thinking eclipsed the lawyer.
Miss Thompson is not herself thin lady.
She weighs, probably, four times as much as
the skeleton, but as he only turns the scale at
forty pounds, it will bs seen that she is not alb
normally large. She may be called plump,
and she is very pretty. She is perhaps 80
years OF age-five years the skeletons ianor.
After the New York exhibition was over the
skeleton and Miss Thompson met often by ap-
pointment at the museum, and the managers
of the show complained that the skeleton was
feeding Hpon his affections and growing fat.
This must have been mistake, however, for
his weight, as he showed by getting on the
scales, had not increased. Another and an
older error, too, was corrected. 1t had been
currently reported among the curiosities of the
show that the skeleton had neither lungs,
heart nor liver, and that steady eye could
look through him and see an object behind.
The existence of respiratory and digestive or
gans may still be matter of doubt, but Miss
thompson Indignantly repudiates the rumor
that he has no heart
The courtship was quite short. Miss Thomp-
son told her lover, in plain prose. the history
of her simple life. He gave her poem OF
twenty-four verses, fully describing his own.
This poem he is in the habit of selling for five
cents copy, but he charged nothing at all for
her copy, and she, overcome by this last proof
OF her skeleton lovers devotion, promised to
be his wife. In fateful moment the skele-
ton was sent to the Brooklyn show. He was
IN despair, but his true love comforted him,
and an appointment was made for last Satur-
day night. At nine o'clock the skeleton was
at the New York Museum, where he mat Miss
Minnie Thompson; at 10 o'clock they were in
Jersey City, and at IL 5'clock they had been
united in marriage by the Rev. Mr.. Gardner
They returned to Brooklyn, and kept the mat
ter secret until yesterday morning, when the
skeleton announced it to Manager Bates. The
ewly-made Mrs. Sprague has consented to
support her husband on the exhibition plat.
form. She will appear in Brooklyn to-day
sitting beside him, and billed: 1.-THE Skee-
toms Wife,"
~ lost the hundred dollars said the newly
married lady, 'but won a husband"