Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1898-11-06

but uron land, and it is not he who
, can work who can afford to marry, but
he who owns enough land to produce
the necessities of family life. The
Swiss are hardy. All the conditions
of their existence make them So The
| hardest and most ceaseless work is
their necessary lot, and that work as
| a rule, yields them but the merest SUI
| ficiencies. Their summers are sum-
mers of cruel labor and their harvests
| harvests of only just enough sheaves
of corn, bins of apples, heaps of cheese,
stores of honey, bundles of fax, hemp
and wool to insure their bitter winters
from nakedness and hunger. They must
work, and they must think ahead.
They must hoard through all the lavish
luscious summer, or winter will bring
them to abject want, want which their
neighbors will certainly lack the means
and possibly lack the will to relieve.
! They have no leisure. They have no
time, perhaps no heart, for lovemak-
ing. Their lovemaking before mar
riage is neither very moving nor very
admirable, but the lovemaking that
precedes marriages is the least of love-
making, the chill tremble of light be-
fore the full glory of life's day. In
| Switzerland there is no lovemaking at
ter marriage.
| There is something very sad and
dreary about a wedding in the canton
of Valais There is no sign of rejoic-
ing, no music, no feasting, not even a
days cessation from the extremely
hard work which makes up the daily
life-the life of each and every day
in this, the hardest, narrowest pulsed
of all the Swiss cantons. At daylight,
| or rather just before daylight, at day
dawn, the bride and groom and the
| few necessary witnesses walk soberly-
There is no marriage garment, no flut-
ter of bridal ribbon, no perfumed flush
of bridal flowers. All wear their work
| day clothes.
The ceremony is briefy-almost sui
lenly-performed There are no con-
gratulations. Resignation seems the
warmest emotion felt-certainly 1t is
the warmest expressed-and it is not
expressed warmly. There is not even
+io1 Ii 10 hrid &c ch ~
The bridegroom is not exultant. All
seem sullen, all depressed. The priest
! is paid his scanty fee-the scantiest
possible. The depressing, the dreary,
the deadly dull function is over. The
day has fairly broken now, and all turn
/; away and plod sullenly to their custo
mary back breaking daily toll.
There is no lingering in the church
, porch for the newly made wife nor for
her bridegroom. They must get to
their daily work, and get there at once;
no delaying work for one five minutes
for peasants of Canton Valais. Per.
| haps both bride and groom feel little
| less like work than is their Industrious
won't, for both have been up even n
little earlier than is their habit. They
must part sharply now and each off to
work. They will meet later at their
| frugal II o'clock dinner of apple brandy
and pulse soup.
Perhaps there are fewer love mar
riages among the peasants Of Valais
| than any other part of Europe. Only
one brother or one sister Of each family
is allowed to marry, that the scant
| family patrimony may never be dimin-
! ished. A family council, after grave
! and long cold-blooded consideration, de-
| cides which brother or sister shall wed
-perpetuate the blood and hand down
| the meager wealth. For more than
| one to wed, for inclination to come
founcing in and take risks. would be
| improvident, and there is no improvi-
dence in Canton Valais.
They even gamble as they wed All
WOO, these dump. numb Swiss stoics-
| that is, without expense and when they
have nothing better q. e., more fnaD-
cially proftable) to do. They are as
prudent-oh, so prudent,-in their gam
blings as in their marryings. Card
playing is both an amusement and an
occupation Of their dull winters, chief
ly so perhaps at Zermatt, but to nc
small extent all over the republic
They do not play for money, nor for
tangible goods or chattels. That would
be most un-Swiss. They play for pray
ers The day after the play all the
losers must go to their village church
| and pray earnestly for the souls of
those who have Won. All. there IL a
humorous side to life as we poor hu.
mans live it, even in Switzerland.
Wedding gifts are few and far be.
tween in Switzerland, II almost gpes
| without saying. But In about half The
Cantons the bridegroom is expected TO
bestow largess to the extravagant ax-
tent OF one pair Of new shoes. In some
cantons It is the chief bridesmaid who