Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1891-01-04
HONPMAN'S EXPERIENCE.
THE TRIALS AND TROUBLES OF THE
HOUSE HUNTER.
Question ?"-At What Age Should
Women Marry.

Question ?"-At What Age Should
Women Marry.
special CORRESPONDENCE of the SUNDAY UNION
There is, in Nevada City, young man
who is learning something new and useful;
something which he will never forget. He
is learning great lesson of experience,
just as l learned it few years age, when
thought there was nothing more for me to
learn.
This young man is looking for house
to rent, and for more than a week he has
been running up one street and down an
other, always in hurry, always hot and
tired and dusty, with little fragments OF
cobwebs on his hat and little patches of
whitewash on his elbows. His face has
grown pale and pinched, his eyes are
sunken and his knees knock together
sometimes and give forth an ancient, mumi-
fed sound. His lips move spssmodically,
and ever and anon he mutters incohe-
rently. He has been brought before our
Judge to be examined as to his sanity, and
he has been discharged. Hunting a
house"-that was all our noble-hearted
Judge cared to hear.
Young man." said his Honor, 81 was
once in the same fix myself. The Court
understands you, and offers you its most
earnest and deepest sympathy. Go forth,
young man, and may the Lord have mercy
on your soul p'
Then his honor wept tear OR two, and
the young man went forth. He was after
ward heard asking the janitor if it would
not be possible to rent the Court. house.
As have already remarked, / learned
al about house.huntipg away back in the
misty past, and unto this day l have al
ways kept my memory particularly green
in that spot where the house-hunting epi-
sode is stored away forever.
When | first went forth in search of
house l believed it would be an easy mat
ter. All one had to do, thought, was 10
pay his money and take his choice Ave /!
there was the rub! Take his choice
To make choice of e house in town
where there are several houses to rent,
each having its own peculiar advantages, is
not an easy thing to do.
1t would be just as easy for fat mis-
sionary at feast to choose the cannibai
who should have the honor of picking the
most tender portions from his wish bone.
Some people like one sort of house, and
some another. One man wants a cellar,
and another does not want cellar. One
wants a mansion and another does not
want mansion. So it goes.
When was hunting for house found
several that suited me, but there was al
ways something which caused me to give
them the shake. One had ghost another
had two ghosts, another had dead cat in
the kitchen, another had an army of rats,
another had sewer under it that had re-
tired from an exceedingly busy public life
to state of very exclusive privacy, and
another had well half full of excellent
water in which an old lady had drowned
herself a few weeks before and was not dis
covered as promptly as she should have
been.
But the greatest pleasure of house hunt
ing lies in the packing up, moving and IN.
packing of ones goods. 1t is simply ioy-
Gus to me; an experience filled with the
greatest, purest, most unutterable delight
hallalujah!
The more goods one has the greater the
pleasure. When l moved the first time
had eight truck-loads of statuary. Venetian
glass mirrors, handicapped walnut furni-
ture of all kinds, spider-legged stoves,
costly paintings, Brussels carpets. old china
CuSphiOfcs dllu Ill cilulSsS E6li-
ETY.. When l was packing and unpacking
the stuff fairly bubbled over with fun and
other things. | stuffed the kittens into the
clock and the poodle into the stove, and
Just shook the claws off the statuary and
stuck my legs through the mirrors out of
pure exuberance, hiIarity and mirth.
People who had known me all my life
said that they had never seen me in SO
entertaining mood before. Of late years,
however, l have not carried so much fur
niture and household ixings with me, and
move easily. If l want a new house
send my devil out, he secures one, and
then pack my collar button in rag and
move.
whether thought women should have
the privilege of popping the question:"
also, at what age did / think woman
should marry.
These questions have been asked thou
sand times already. They are older
than l am, and l am so old that my bones
wear holes in my garments, and my Joints
skrsek when l walk. But l will answer
them, as my old friend Corkey would say,
"onct fer all"
No. l do NOT think women should have
this privilege. 1t would be an Internally
cold day for some of us. The girls would
be ON our trail for weeks, playing detective
to see whether we went TO our clubs,
chewed, smoked, drank, swore, went out
for larks, played billiards or kept appoint.
ments when the moon had climbed the
mountain, and so on. They would never
find man good enough, and there would
be only about one wedding in ten years.
As the custom is now we men may
manage to chew cloves, practice little
innocent deception, wear our Sunday
manners for awhile and get some sweet
little daisy OF a girl to marry US, but no
girl who has any sense would ask us to
marry her if she knew what awful, horrid,
mean things we really are
As to the age when woman should
marry. Well, that depends great deal on
the woman. Some women would be bet
ter off if they were married before their
dolls were forgotten, and others would get
great deal of good out of matrimony if
they never married at all. But | think a
woman should marry before she loses ali
her teeth and her eyssight-or attempts
to raise a family. II she wants to
be happy, she should marry young.
There is nothing more painful to me than
an old woman who has lost all the fresh
ness and rosy beauty of her girlhood-who
has gone down into the shadows of ma
turity; who has longed for years for the
love and protection of noble man; there
is nothing more painful. l say. than to see
woman of this sort yearning and banker
ing for an opportunity to ask some lively
young fellow to marry her remains. And
how often this would happen il women
had the privilege of popping the ques-
tioni'
l may be wrong. Ny opinion never was
very good in any case.
Apropos of marriages: l was in Red
Bluff few weeks ago, and while there a
very popular young lady told me that there
were very few eligible young men in that
pretty little city, and the girls would be
compelled to go away to marry or have a
few carloads imported, and that reminds
me that meant 10 write good description
of Red Bluff for the SUNDAY UNIoN, and
haven't done it, but will next week.
A. V. HOFFMAN.
SCIENTIFIC HINTS.
The substitution of electric lights for the
Dayy lamps in coal mines is likely 10 re-