The Mineral argus., 1884-03-20

ddYe ten KISSES. al ldsttA
''Oh, - says he, you're my Mollie Malone" :"
And the moral:
'Tf for widows you sigh
Learn to kiss, not to sigh,
For they're all like sweet Mistress
Malone"
Mrs. Florence won great applause
singing widow Bedott," who defied
the young men to come after her with
catch me if you can, and her quaint
eulogies of Deacon Bedott."
'eWho never jawed in all his life,
He never was unkind;
And though ! say, that was his wife,
Such men you seldom find"
A queer case, and one that should
serve as a model, was once recorded of
an Irish widow who literally starved
herself to death on account of grief at
the death of her hush md Such devo-
ton is rarely seen outside of India,
where the widows burn themselves upon
their husbands funeral pyre. Died
last week in King street, Ormontown, a
lady of property, little above 80, who,
though in apparent bodily health, has
Obstinaiety confined herself to her cham
ber ever since the death of her beloved
husband, which occurred about six
weeks since and refused all sustenance
but what was barely sufficient to
support an existence burdensome. Her
chamber was hung around with portraits
of her husband in different attitude,
which she continually and alternately
caressed with fervOr little short of
worship, and perpetually expressed
aloud her wishes of being with him, as
if she conceived his image animated or
was susceptible of her devotion. Under
circumstances wearing such strong
marks of insanity, her reason in every
other respect was perfectly strong, her
department mild and her benevolence
to the poor and oppressed cordial and
unbounded, which she testified in nu-
naerous instances. Her constitution at
length yielded to the force of grief and
rigid abstinence, and she died, after
having refused all sustenance for five
days, leaving the remainder of her
property to distressed objects.
All widows do not give up the ship as
soon as their husbands die on account
of the brevity of their breath. Toward
the close of the last century tenant of
Mr.. Way, at HOsketon, in Suffolk, died,
leaving a widow with IA children. the
eldest of whom was a girl under IA years
of age. He had rented ii acres of pas
ture land, on which he kept two cows
These cows, with his little furniture and
clothing, were all the property he left.
The parish of which he had been an in
habitant was within the district of an
Incorporated house of industry where
the rule was to receive proper objects
within the walls, but not to allow any
thing for the outpoOr, eXceptin peculiar
cases. The directors of the establish
ment offered to relieve the widow by
taking her seven youngest children into
the house. When this was
proposed to her she re-
piled in great agitation that she would
rather die in working to maintain her
children than part with any of them;
or she would go with all of them into
the house and work for them there; but
if her landlord would continue her in
the farm she would undertake to bring
mp the whole fourteen without any help
from the parish She was strong
woman, about fOrty-fve years old and
of noble spirit; happily, too, she had to
deal with benevolent man. He told
her she should continue his tenant and
hold the land for the first year rent free,
and at the same time, unknown to her,
he directed his receiver not to call upon
her afterward, thinking it would be a
great thing if she could maintain so
large family. But this further 1iber-
ality was not needed. She brought her
rent regularly every year after the first,
held the land until she had placed
twelve of the children in service, and
then resigned it to take the employment
of a nurse, which would enable her to
provide for the remaining two for the
little time longer they needed support,
and which was more suited to her
declining years.
The delicate. refined and religious
! custom of the aindoo widow, disdaining
TO live after her husband, mounts the
funeral pyre on which his body is placed :,
! displays an amiability or faith only
equaled by the doctrines of antique or
/ thodoxv. which condemns every babe
/ not baptized to eternal torments. 1t is
! claimed that the custom was introduced
with a view of making wives more care
tul of preserving their husbands when
| alive A wife poisoned her husband,
and, to prevent all others from follow
! ing her example, it was decreed that
when husbands died their wives should
die with them. This theory is, howev-
er, at variance with the idea that the
sacrifice must be voluntary. Last sea-
son, when the Kiralfy Brothers put
on Around the World in Eighty Days,
Aonda, the Rajah's widow and heroine
of the play was not anxious to be burned