The Savannah morning news., 1904-02-07
THE GENIAL IDIOT
He Discusses Leap Year.
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
Copyright, 1904, by John Russell Davidson.

Geneseo, New Jersey, who owned
hotel on the Oklawaha river that
didn't pay, and hoped to brace nm
bad investment by the establishment
IN the vicinity of a center of culture.
Prof. Zero receives ten dollars a week.
and with his wife and three pupils
constitutes the whole faculty. board
of trustees, janitor and student bodv
OF the University" said the Idiot.
Mrs. Zero dresses on nothing a year,
cares for her five children on the same
basis, and is happy. They are the
principal patrons of the Oklawaha Ho-
tel"
"Well-if she is happy?" said the
Bibliomaniac. What business is if of
anybody else? I think if Prof. Zero
makes her happy he's the right kind
of a man"
You couldn't make Zero the right
KIND of man." said the Idiot. He
isn't built that way. He wears mems
clothes and he has sweet manners,
and dulcet voice, and the learning
OF the serpent; but when it comes to
manhood he has the initiative of the
turtle, lacking the cash value of the
terrapin, or the turtles mock brother.
ne wears beard, but 1t is the heard
OF the bearded lady who up-to-date
appears to be a useless appanage of
the strenuous life; and when YOU trv
to get at his Americanism, if he has
any, he flies off into stilted periods
having to do with the superior vir-
tues of the Cingalese And Margaret
Perkins that was hangs on his utter
ances as though he were a very arch
angel
Good" calculated Mr. Brief. II am
glad to hear that she is happv."
SO am l" said the idiot. But
such happiness"
well, what's it all got to do with
Leap Year, anyhow" asked the Bib
liomaniac.
Nothing at all, except that it
proves that girls aren't fitted really
to choose their own husbands and
that therefore the special privilege
conferred upon them by the recur-
renee of Leap Year should be rescind-
ed by law" said the Idiot. That priv
ilege owing to womans incapacity to
| choose correctly and mans weakness
/ in the use of negatives is a standing
menace to the future happiness of the
| people,
'Hoity- toity," cried Mrs. Pedagog.
What a proposition. Tell me, Mr..
Idiot, if a woman is not capable of Sc
lecting her own husband, who on earth
is? Man himself-that embodiment of
all the wisdom and all the sagacity of
| the ages?'
Il didn't say So" said the Idiot
And l don't really think so,'' he add
ed. THE whole institution of getting
engaged to be married should be regu-
lated by the public authorities. Every
county should have its Matrimonial
Bureau whose duty it should be to
pair off all the eligible candidates in
the matrimonial market and in pair
CHI he on
basis of mutual fitness. Bachelors and
old maids should be legislated' out of
existence, and nobody should be al
lowed to marry a second time until
everybody else had been provided for
II is perfectly scandalous to me to
read in the newspa pers that a. promi-
nent widow in a certain town has
married her third husband, when it is
known that that same city contains
%, 900 old maids who haven't the ghost
of a show unless the state steps in and
helps them out. What business has
any woman to work up a corner in
husbands, with so many of her sisters
absolutely starving matrimonially?
'And the young people are to have
nothing to say about it, eh?' asked
Mr.. Brief.
ooh, yes-they can put in an applica-
ton to the Bureau stating that they
want to we'd and the Board OF Man
ayers can consider the desrablllty OF
issuing a permit, said the idiot ana
they should be compelled to show cause
why thy should not be restrained from
getting married. 1t is only in such
way that the state can reasonably
guarantee the permanence OF a con-
tract to which 1t is in sense a party.
The state, by the establishment of GER
tain laws demands that the marriage
contract shall practically be life af-
fair. 1t should therefore take 1t upon
itself to see to it that here is tolerable
prospect at least that the contract is
a just one. Many poor woman has
been bound to a lifelong obligation
of misery in which no consideration
whatever has been paid by the party OF
the second part. If a contract without
consideration will not stand in COM
merce, why should it in matrimony|
what you ought to go in for is Nor
monism," snapped Mrs. Pedagog.
keep on getting married until you've
found just the right one and then get
rid of all the others"
'"That is pleasing alternative" said
the Idiot. but expensive. I'd hate
to pay milliners bill for Mormon
household-but anyhow we needn't !
grow acrimonious over the subject, for
whatever may think of matrimony as
she exists to-day, all the injustices,
inequalities, miseries of it. and all that,
I prefer it to acrimony, and haven't
the slightest idea that my dream of
perfect conditions will ever be real
lied. Only, Mary
s'Yessir?" said the Maid.
If between this and the first of jan
nary 1905. any young ladies, or old |
ones. either, call here and ask for
me
"Yessir," said the Maid.
TELL 'em I've gone to Nid1ni- NOV
porod and am not expected back for
eleven years" said the Idiot. m not
going to take any chances"