Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1902-02-22
SERVANTS AS WIVES.
Many Conspicuous European Person-
ages Have Married Their Maids.

The young man i'll society who caused
his family great pain and anger the other
day by marrying his servant girl can
plead the example of many celebrated
men as an extenuation or a justification
of his act. There was William Goblet,
the great writer. and the ''liberator of
the English press" as he is frequently
called. He was only q years of age
when, walking out in the streets of Hall
fax, Nova Scotia, one morning, he
CHANGED to see a buXom servant girl bust
ly engaged iii washing the family linen.
The girl, though only Is years of age,
was pretty, so Cobbett spoke to her,
learned her name, and the same evening
called upon her parents and said he
would like to marry their daughter.
This is probably the origin of the ex-
preston, This is so SUDDEN which
blushing maidens have made use of ever
since. The parents of the girl informed
the young man that they had no Objec-
ton to him as a sOn-in-law, but that he
would have to wait until their daughter
was of Il marriageable age. According
ly, Cobbett gave the girl all the money
he had, which amounted to f140, and
she went to England and became a serv-
'ant in the family of a clergyman. Five
years later Goblet returned to England
and married her.
The late Sir Henry Parkes, premier of
New South Wales, is another example.
One night, when dining at a friends
house, he was struck by the appearance
of a servant girl who waited at the table,
and persuaded his host to allow her to
enter his employ. This she did, and for
2, short time held the position of cook in
'siv 1fe1fy's household. Then his love
for her overcame all conventionalities,
and he made her Lady ParIes. Sir Ger
x4ybo Of To
is one of the finest books of its kind in
existence, married no fewer than seven
times, and each time selected his lady
from among his domestic servants. The
seventh Lady Clifton outlived her lord,
but the other six he buried in a family
mausoleum which cost 100000.
Thomas Day, the author of the IA
nous book, Sanford and Merton" Sc
lected two girls, one from a poorhouse
and one from a founding asylum, and
took them into his house as servants. He
proposed to both of them in turn. One
rejected his suit. The other promised to
marry him, but withdrew her promise on
account of his eccentricities. Day, how
ever, admired the girls courage, and set
tied a dowry of $500 upon her, at the
same time deciding to remain a bache-
lor. But more illuStriOuS than all these
examples is that of Peter the Great
One day the founder of the Russian EN-.
pire, the great and terrible Peter, was
dining at the house of Prince Menchi-
koff He noticed one of the serving
maids particularly, and. though she was
not handsome, she caught the fancy OF
Peter.
Her name, the prince told the Gar
was Martha. She had been a servant in
the house of a Lutheran minister of Ma
rienburg, and when that city was cap
tured by the troops of Russia she had
been taken prisoner by Gen. Bauer, who
had passed her over to the prince, whose
serf she was.
her to the Gar. who eventually married
her. renamed her Catherine, and she
reigned after him as Catherine l., En-
press OF all the Russias.-LondOn Elk
prpSS