The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-09-02
SOME AMAZING MARRIAGES.
Unions of Youth md Age-Strango ChsAsea
% Klngs n Princes.

From LoNdOR Tt-Bits.
That the days Of romantic marriages are
by no means at an end is proved By the fast
thai within q few days recently the lady
superior Of q Budapest convent. who he'd
for twenty years worn the veil Of q nun.
became the wife Of q Ston0mason yOung
enough to be her son; . wealthy widow OF
Warrington gave her hand and heart 70 Q
blind street singer. a German Count Of long
descent led a washerwoman's daughter 20
the altar and q Russian Countess eloped with
her footmAn.
But Cupid has played pranks far straneeT
than any Of these. A good many years Q
q bridegroom OF % years. hopeless b2chs-
lor. II ever there was one-was carried TO the
altar In Scotland on mems shoulders. His
legs says the chrOnicIer. were drawn up
to his ears. his rms were twisted backward.
and almost every member was out OF joint
At Worcester q blacksmith OF ninety was
once mated to . child Of fifteen: In Bsrkahirs
a blind woman OF ninety was welded TO hsr
ploughman, a youth Of twenty: and . nttjs
later q girl Of sixteen became the bride Of Q
mar who was nearly eighty when abe was
Graded. Almost more remarkable still was
q Berkshire wedding. Of many years ago.
IN which bridegroom and bride numbered 100
years between them-he was % and aha but
two years Younger the two bridesmaids
had celebrated their ssventieth btrth&Ax.
and the path to the altar was streWn with
flowers BY six Of the bridsgr0om's grand
~daughters.
In the eighteenth century a roma who
was piIloried In Cheapslde and sentenced "a
six months imprisonment had been married
to no fewer than three memb4na of hsr own
sex. whom In turn she robbed md dsSsrtsdI
and at the same time two women were Keep
ing q public house at Poplar as man and vita.
and IL was only on her death bed that tho
wife revealed the secret which had been
successfully kept for thirty-six years.
About ten years ago DR.. Mary Spencer
was married at Meath to her eleventh husband.
her nrst appearance at the altar being at thu
age Of fifteen. and her latest at forty-four.
A Me xican lady. Sonora Rey Castillo. buried
seven husbands between 1880 and 1895, each
Of them dying a violent death. q man Of Bor-
deaux only yielded up the ghost in 1879 after
he had welded his sixteenth bride: Jerome
tells OF a widow who had buried twenty-ops
husbands before she was united to a man
who had already survived twenty wives;
and Evelyn beats this amazing record with
the case OF q woman who when he saw her
was married 20 her twenty NTH husband.
To return, however. to remarkable cases Of
mesAlliance IL 10 not long sine one Of the best
known kings Of Europe made q morganstic
wife Of the daughter Of a caretaker Of Louvain.
whom be had air eady created q baroness;
Archduke John Of Austria married the pretty
daughter OF q small country postm last ct.
who in boys clothes had acted AZ his position:
Archduke John Salvador s~acrifc ed his royal
rank 70 become the husband Of a ballet dancer.
the daughter Of obscure parents. and Arch
luke Ernest took 10 wife a woman of7stii
humber position, and not long ago the son NJ
this union was head waiter in a Budapest cafe:
while Princess Josephine Of Spain, great aunt
Of King Alfonso. eloped with a Havana jour-
nalist.
Peter the Great made a wife and empress
OF a girl who had been a ser vant in the house
OF a Lutheran minister at Marienburg: Sir
Henry Parkes, Will am Cobbett and Thomas
Coutts. the millionaire banker, all chose
maids Of all work for their life partners, an d
Sir Gervaise Clifton, the historian OF Jamaica,
had no few or tn an seven wives, each Of whom
had been in his own service.