The true northerner., 1886-07-15

Col. Pat Donan Indignantly Denies that He
Is Going To Join the Ranks of the Ben

the printer does not henceforth put an
&c" after the ii" in that world paper of
recent date, L find this photographic
startler, condensing q whole earthquake
into ten lines
"Col. Z. Donan, of Dakota, will pass
through here in a short time to Mexico.
1t is reported that he is to be married
before long TO young Mexican girl, the
daughter the Governor of one of the
Mexican states, and the owner of one
of the richest and most famous of the
old Spanish silver mines-a young girl,
beautiful, accomplished, and rich as a
queen, the only daughter and the only
child of one of the richest men in Mex
ico-speaking three languages tluently,
with a voice like a nightingale, and
singing divinely."
So / am to be married, am /? You
are going to marry me off, are you?
How kind of you to do for me what
never could do for myself. | had begun
TO think perhaps it was time. From
my reserved seat on top of barbed
wire-fence, / have been watching the
procession good while. Day after day,
and week after week, until the weeks
have heightened into months, and the
months into years, l have looked on at
humanity's strange wedding march. 1t
is the old, old story. Leaf by leaf the
roses fall. Yelp by yelp young cherubs
bawl. One by one the ghosts cross the
river, two by two are padded DER, and
the white-robed angel boatmen bear
them to the bllssful shore. The trap
springs and another victim is caught.
The ministerial lariat is thrown, and
another hapless pumpkin is writhing
and dancing in the airy nothingness Of
honeymoonatic-and the honeymoon Is
made of the greenest of green cheese.
One by one L have seen my boonest
companions pass, ever passing, away TO
that dread bourne from whence no voy-
ager returns, save through a divorce
suit, or the expense of tirst-class
funeral. Atpresent rates, the jeremiad
of the last dog-fennel blossoms of sum-
mer will soon be mine: "All my bloom
ing associates are faded and gone" to
Happiness of the connubialistic type.
A few years since a noble band of hand
some and high-aspiring friends stood
around me-fresh, bright, verdant
young plants.
The matrimonial simeon has swept
over the plain, and where are they now?
Sm!tten, blasted cut down like the
grass of the field, which to-day is, and
tomorrow is-made into hay TO feed a
donkey or line goose nests. Faded,
withered, dry enough for pea-sticks.
Alas alas what has got into the youth
of the land? Caught by a giggle, see
how they wriggle. In vain have L
expostulated and warned them. In
vain do L stand like a he-Niobe, and,
with outstretched arms, implore
them to halt and consider their latter
end. The tinkle of piano or guitar,
or the rippling tee-hee of maidenly mer-
riment, comes floating on the perfumed
air, and the admonitory roar of
friendly Niagara would be unheard.
Heedlessly, needlessly, scorning in
struction, onward they are rushing,
surging and pushing down to destruc-
ton, or to matrimony, which too often
amounts to about the same. he
young, the brave, the gay, the grave,
the ugly, the pretty, the silly, the
witty, the brilliant, the stupid, all
bound to travel the broad, gudgeon-
beaten path that leads to beatitic
moonshine, white kids and neckties,
orange blossoms, altars and mumbling
parsons, to vine-clad cottages up four
pairs OF stairs, grocers bills, wash
days, sodden biscui S, slop coffee, seedy
hats, patched elbows, faded cilicoes,
drudgery, squalls, and variegated un-
pieasantness. Poor wretches! Infat-
uated double-uppers Heaven help
them Everybody says / ought to
have been one of them, ought to have
joined the missing halfhunters, ought
to have been a Benedict, or Maledict,
long ago. And L suppose l ought
but l have not You have brought me
nearer to it than l ever was before.
Married To be married And with
out any of the tangled and troublous
preliminaries. What infinite and diver
sifed tribulations you have spared me
by transporting me in fairy-prince-or-
princess fashion to the alleged elysium
of marriage, without any weary wander
in g in the labyrinthine mazes of court
ship, or any perilous egg-shell naviga-
ton of the proverbially damned cur
rent of true love which, from the lace
cap and ruffled what-is-it period of
creations history until now, never did
run smooth. The wide world over, its
shallow, bubbling channel has been
strewn with rocks and quicksands, cata-
racts, whirlpools, eddies, and sand
bars. In every land and cline since
Jehovah took that crooked bone from
our great-great-gran chloroformed
side, by which his first sleep became
his last repose, the story has been the
same. Obstacles. trials, anxiet es, mad
dening jealousies, doubts, and misun-
derstandings beset the lovelorn, court
ing ninny's way. A stern old daddy's
number fourteen stoga boot, with big
brass headed nails in the toe, a vixen
ish prospective mother-in-law, mis-
carried note or package of taify,
crushed bouquet, look, wink,
word, anything, everything sufces.
has for sixty centuries sufi:ced, to
wiring lovers and wooers' souls with
red-hot dentists tweezers of agony. 1t
is the doom of the whole spoony race.
The Judge, the Sheriff, the Coroner
and the Chief of Police of Red Gulch
were engaged in playing poker. The