The Topeka state journal., 1897-12-02

| heves that Henry CIews and Russell Sage
viii favor the universally of marriage.
The wealthiest women of the metropolis
will not be ignored.
1t viii require a capital Of 100000 to
conduct state matrimonial bureau. Mrs.
Smith anticipates no difficulty in securing
| that from the members of the syndicate.
She Will indulge in little irony by invite
ing bachelor Mayor Van Wyck of New
York to join the syndicate. An oppor-
tunity to work for the encoura cement of
matrimOny will be afforded ex-AIayor Cur
tbs of Boston, whom Mrs. Smith declares
she drove into marriage.
The object of the international Matri-
moniaI bureau is to encourage and pro-
mote matrimony," said Mrs. Smith. I'VE
will use three means for this purpose.
First, we will invite correspondence from
men and women who desire to marry, and
will arrange meetings between those we
think adapted to each other, when prac-
ticable. We viii look into the private
record and the ancestry of each, and sat
isfy the other that point
Second, we will secure and circulate
statistics on morality and health relative
to matrimony that will educate the pub
lie. We will show that upon matrimony
depends the life of the republic. We will
spread information regarding practices
that will show how near we are to drift
ing upon the shoals of European immor-
ality.
$500 to $500 for girls who are without
means. These are small sums, but the
lack of them is keeping millions of hon.
est couples from marrying
There is no sentimentality in Mrs.
Smiths consideration of matrimony. She
regards it merely in the light of a cura>
tive agent, and says if it become univer-
sal there will be immortality.
Love is a mere question of propinquity
and similarity of tastes she said. Bring
a couple of the same station in life to-
gether. If neither of them IS monstrously
unprepossessing and they are congeniaI
as to tastes, there are ninety-nine chances
out of a hundred that they will expert
ence the attraction called love. Bring per-
sons who are adaptable together, let them
discuss matrimony, and the rest is easy
is Mrs. Smiths pre-ma trimoniaI platform.
Mrs. Smith does not include the much
hated rich bachelor or widower in her
plan for a matrimonial bureau.
My compulsory marriage plan is the
only way to deal with them." she said,
contemptuousIy- They are hardly fit to
marry, anyway, with their fixed habits of
dissipation. They are selfish ego tistic
fellows, who herd together in bachelor
hotels and clubs and prepare the way for
paresis and suicide They are no benefit
to society. They are mere driftWOOd on
it's stream. I hope to be alive when they
are all whipped into the matrimonial line
by the compulsory marriage law There
will probably not be enough young and
pretty women in the United States to go
round, for 1 have observed that, no mat
ter what decrepit physical wrecks that
class of old sinners are, they always
think beauty and youth their due.
1T is not these men I want to provide
the bureaus for, but the honest, weIl-in-
tentiohed men who cannot afford to
marry without the start which dowry
of from $500 to $500 gives them. I have
received hundreds of letters from that
kind of men. Most of them live in iso-
lated regions of the west. They say they
want good wives, and promise to be good
husbands. All that is in the way is their
lack of the small sum needed to enable
them to set up housekeeping in a modest
way and have a small nest-egg laid by
as a provision against being out of en-
ployment, or against sickness.
In these days man is not sure of
employment from one day to another.
Hard times and the spread of sympa-
thettc strikes have made him truly un-
certain of what day may bring forth
He hesitates to marry with such pos
sibiIity staring him in the face. But with
his wife's small dowry to furnish the lit
tie fiat to buy her humble trousseau and
put away a hundred or so in the bank, ne
can look the future boldly and fearlessly
in the face. It is the honest mechanic
and tradesman and struggling young
professional man want to benefit by the
International Matrimonial bureau.
"And the women? They are the poor,
hard working girls. Such girls are broken
down and unfit for matrimony when they
have reached 25 years and spent most of
their lives in mills and factories.
Girls are somewhat to blame for the
growing disinclination toward marriage.
They want to start married life at the
same point of prosperity where their
mothers and fathers left off. 1 am glad
that only a small percentage of our girls
are so foolish. Most of them are willing
to take good husbands If they have some
assurance of immunity from hardship and
want.
81 firmly believe that without such
means as national matrimonial bureaus
and compulsory marriage laws Americans
will become extinct. They are not a
child-bearing nation and they are becom-
ing daily more averse to matrimony- The
assimilation of a healthy foreign element
is all that saves US.
Il want to see American men and wo-
men look upon marriage as divine IN
stead of a despised institution 1 want to
see a return of the old days, when, as
ex-President Harrison said, I'VE began
life in one room with two chairs and
couple of three-prong forks and were
never so happy before nor since in our
lives "
Mrs. Smith has found use for the gov
ernment conscience fund"
For nearly forty years that fund has
been accommodating. 1t must amount to
about $500. 900, and has lain in the United
States treasury awaiting some good use
to be put to- have found the use. Those
internal revenue fellows who cheated the
government and sought to appease their
~ -o,5fre- hack mart 81 the