The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-12-18

HUSBAND B0e must come IN leF sIQOCk
only, and white wand 10 her hand"
Among the Roxburghe ballads is one dat
pg from Manningham's time. which sets
forth how a merchant OF Chichester killed
German at Emden town, and how, after
be had made his dying speech on the scaf-
od, no less than ten ''goodly maidens"
begged for his hand and his life.
This is our law" quoth they,
I'VE may your death remove
If yOu in lieu Of our good will,
Will grant to US your love-"
This merchant was fastidious parsonage
however; perhaps wide experience had
made him an epicure; certainly no one OF
the maidens was ''Roodly" enough for his
taste, and he quietly asked the executioner
to perform his office
Then an eleventh damsel interviewed and
BY the combined force of her charms and
eloquence made the merchant relent and
accept her kind offer; so
Hand in hand they went
Unto the church that day;
And they were married presently
In sumptuous rich array.
The famous border thief, Scott Of
Harden, married his wife as an alternative
from the gsllows. He had lifted the cattle
Of Murray of Blibank. and had been trap
ped and driven, with his followers and the
stolen animals, back to Blibank castle.
MARRIAGE OR THE GALLows.
Murray told his wife that Scott would not
escape him that time-that now he was
caught he should hang thigh upon the GAL
lows tree" when Mrs. Murray deferentially
suggested that it would be ity to hang so
winsome fellow when they had three such
sorry girls pining in single blessedness at
home.
Murray caught at the idea, sent for Meg
o the Mouth, the ugliest and eldest Of his
three daughters, and presented her TO the
sstonished prisoner with the request that he
would choose between the lady and GER
tain high tree which he pointed out
Scott swore vehemsutly, and finally re-
fused to have her at any price; and it was
not until he felt the moose Tightening round
his neck that he gave in married the
elderly, ugly daughter, and returned to
Harden a sadder and wiser man, to curse
that unlucky raid that had brought him
such Nemesis, says the London Graphic.
Another curious belief in connection with
marriage was that if woman lacked mod
esty as well as money she might throw off
her debts with her dress, and by going to
church in one garment only make her cred
tors shift for their dues, much as though
law were ike the lion In the "Faery Queen,n
and lost all ferceneSs before an unclad Una
In the records of the Fleet marriages this
kind OF thing is commonly met with, 30
commonly, indeed, that one ceases even to
smile on reading OF a beauty unadorned
skipping across Ludgate Hill to change her
name and begin her life anew by the aid of
q rascally Fleet parson.
In the parish register Of Chiltern All
Saints, Wiltshire, there is an entry record
ing the nupt,als, Dot. II, TIA, of John
Bridmore and Anne Sellwood and to it
this note is appended: "The aforesaid Anne
Sellwood was married In her shift, without
any clothes or headgear on"
len years later a similar scene was en-
acted at Ulcombe, in Kent. Kahn, IN his
Travels in North America" Q740. tells Of
poor widow whose husband, settler, had
left her nothing but debts and what she
stood in, and who, upon marrying a second
time, went to church in her chemise,
thereby relieving herself and her new part
ner from all past liabilities of hers, and
Kahn in mentioning the fact adds that such
spectacles were often witnessed in the colo-
MES.
In 1865 Whitehaven woman effected an
Improvement in this primitive mode OF pro-
cedure by undressing herself to her under
most garment for the ceremony, and by
going to and returning from church as be-
came a strictly proper woman. So late as
the year 1910, we are told by correspond
ent of Notes and Queries, Lincolnshire
curate otfciated at a wedding where the
heroine OF the occasion stood before him en-
veloped in a sheet.
This gentle woman promised her husband
on his death that on no account would she
tnlnk OF marrying again, but having, like
the majority of US, convenient memory,
clean forgot the promise she had given when
Sir Stephen Fox came s-wooing.
Sir Stephen Fox led her to the altar and
led her home again, when. on returning to
the drawing room of her house, the picture
OF Sir Walter fell on her shoulder aud broke
10 the fall, an extraordinary warning which
the newIymade Lady Fox, absolutely
ignorant. no doubt, of the laws of causa-
eion, took as a supernatural warning that
her pronlise-breaking would be avenged and
her second marriage prove an unfortunate
one and she herself made it so By dwelling
constantly upon the incident and the death
Ded scene which it called to mind.
QUAINT sUPERsTITIoNs.
In Lindisfarne the dying fire Of very
OLD superstition is still famed into a flame
now and then by the ceremony known as
the bestriding of the Pelting stone. This
is the socket stone Of ponderous cross
erected by the Saxon Bishop Ethelwald,
and broken to pieces by the Danes on one
OF their early piratical expeditions against
Tue northern English.
Whenever a marriage takes place at the
village church the bride steps the Pelttng
stone, and II she cannot stride from one
end TO the other she knows that her matri-
monial venture will result unhappiIy. Such
fancied foreknowledge as this is likely to
and, NJ doubt, very often does-work
out its own fulfllment, as in the case of the
WIDOW OF Sir Walter Long of DraYcott.
In Chambers Book Of Days" there is
quoted a manuscript of the fifteenth
century from which it appears there are
thirty.two Gays in the year upon which it
Is unadvisable to go to church to be joined
IN holy matrimony the particular days be-
ing these: Jan. l, 2, 4, 5, z. TO- 10: Feb. 6.
= Is; March l. 6, s; April 6. IL; May 3, 8, q;
June7. Is; July 5, 10; Aug. Is, 10; Sept. g.,
y Oct q; Nov. Is. IS; Dec. Is, Is, II.
AS for the day Of the week, other things
being equal, the old rhyme'tells us-omitting
sunday as day of invariable good luck;
Monday for wealth;
Tuesday for health;
Wednesday the best day OF all
Thursday for crosses;
Friday for losses;