The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-09-22


to three guineas and a half. They
were good old times. indeed, for the
man who wanted to get rid of the wo-
man he had sworn to cherish. In 1903,
it is recorded, a man led his wife by
a halter into the cattle market at
Sheffield and sold her for guinea. The
market value of wife seems to have
dropped as the century grew older,
for in 1920 a worthy husband at Can
terbury placed his wife in a cattlepen
and disposed of her for shillings.
The century had run through more
than half its course when the good
people of Derby had the opportunity
of buying the wife of one of their fell
low townsmen. The woman was led
to the market place with a halter
round her waist and was knocked down
for IS pence and a quart of beer.
That was in 1856. but we need not go
back nearly so far for evidence of the
wife-trade. Thirty years later-in the
eighties-a collier sold his wife at AL
freton, in Derbyshire. for fourpence,
and in the same decade. in the year of
grace in which the bells rang for the
Jubilee of the Victorian Era, two
Sheffield men agreed to the buying and
selling of a wife in a public house in
the smoky city. "At the Royal Oak,
Sheffield" the agreement ran, Il.
Abraham Boothroyd. agreed to sell
my wife, Clara, to William Hall, both
of Sheffield, for the sum of five shil
lings." There is not even the relief in
these cases of consoling ones self with
the reflection that the sale of the wife
is thing of impulse. Often enough it
is deliberate commercial transaction
in cold blood, as in the case that came
to light a few years ago in which the
wife, with her parents and two friends,
met to arrange the terms of the sale.
The price was fixed at 80 shillings, and
the bill of sale ran: Mr.. to
have my wife. Elizabeth -, free
from me forever. to do as she has a
mind. this day. Dec. II, 1898"
The notion that a man may sell his
wife and marry again is incredibly
common among certain classes of the
population A prisoner at Leeds on his
trial for bigamy pleaded that the
charge could not stand. as he had sold
his wife for 8 shillings sixpence. and
was therefore entitled to marry again.
The case is barely six yeasr old, and
about the same time another instance
was reported from village near Dom
caster, the circumstances coming to
light in the Police Court 81, Enoch
nor anything of real value But she
Childs," the agreement ran, lis quite
willing to take your wife and children
as mine, that is, your, wife, Ellen Tart
and Sarah, John, Henry, and Eliza
The paper was signed by the wife OF
the purchaser, and dated New Conis-
borough, March 2S, 1885,
Some of the new hats are startling,
but the pretty. graceful and wearable
styles are not especially novel or orr
iginal. The startling hats are enor-
nous so-called picture models. which
only a giantess could attempt to wear.
One of these mammoth affairs is of pal
est tan felt, and the huge Tapping
brim is faced with black velvet. The
top of the hat, crown and brim, is
almost covered by a huge white bird
with outspread wings. The back Of
the brim is slit from the edge to the
crown and then laced together with
black velvet ribbon. Just what rela-
ton to style or beauty or mundane af-
fairs of any kind this hat bears is not
clear to any ordinary mortal. 1t is
too big and too f1amboyant to be
worn except in comic opera, and not
fanciful and pretty enough even for
that purpose. 1t looks like a poster
or a hatter's advertisement. It is al
most offensive to have such things Of
fered to women of presumable taste
and sanity Truly the Parisians must
think the Americans a mad race when
they dare to offer them such styles. But
what of the Americans who buy them
and then offer them for sale to their
own countrywomen?
Another monstrous hat is of black
velvet with a white gauze ruche five
inches deep standing up all around the
crown. Long black and white ostrich
plumes sweep around the side of the
hat and long, dangling scarf-ends hang
from the back.
It Is told of a Boston woman. says
the New York Commercial Advertiser,
that she put all her furs and woollens
away last spring with what she
thought were moth balls. She took
them out the other day and they were
all in perfect condition. The woman
was proud of her housewifely skill.
The son of the family, poking around
the house for something, found a num-
Der of golf balls that he had been
looking for all summer.
Where have these been?" he asked
his mother.
I'm the trunks and boxes in the
storeroom, OF course" said his moth
er. DO you think I use moth balls
for ornaments?"
The son, being a model young man,
said no more. II hadn't the heart to
disillusion her" he told his father. But
the father is not a model and that's
why her friends are laughing over one
good wife's keeping away moths by
Christian Science methods.
There is a Brooklyn woman. saws the
New York Times, who has always been
noted for the pretty clothes she wears
and particularly her stylish hats. who
says that she never buys hat without
thinking of one Of the prettiest hats
she ever had, bought for her when she
was a young girl going for the first
time to boarding school. 1t was really
a beautiful hat, white chip trimmed
with pale heliotrope flowers and par
ticularly becoming to the girl who vas
TO wear 1t. and who had hair of a red
Dish gold and the beautiful complexion
which goes with such hair. But I'M
fortunately the hat was altogether too
pretty in the eyes OF the boarding
school mistress who took more mater
nal care Of her young charges than
boarding school teachers do nowadays.
MY dear" she said that hat will