The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-06-11
SOME AMAZING MARRIAGES.
Unions Of Youth and Age-Strange
Choice of Kings and Princes.

Choice OF Kings ana Princes.
That the days of romantic mar
riages are by no means at an end is
proved by the fact that within few
days recently the lady superior of a
Budapest convent, who had for
twenty years worn the veil of a nun,
became the wife of a stonemason
young enough to be her son; veal
thy widow of Washington gave her
hand and heart to a blind street
singer, a German Count of long de-
scent led a washerwoman's daughter
to the altar and Russian Countess
don Tit-Bits.
But Cupid has played pranks far
stranger than any of these. A good
many years ago bridegroom of so
years-a hopeless bachelor, If ever
there was one--was carried to the
altar in Scotland, on mems shoul-
ders. His legs" says the chroni-
cler "were drawn up to his ears, his
arms were twisted backward, and al
most every member was out of
joint"
At Worcester a blacksmith of
ninety was once mated to a child Of
fifteen; in Berkshire a blind woman
of ninety was welded to her plough
man, youth of twenty; and little
later a girl of sixteen became the
bride of a man who was nearly
eighty when she was Graded. AL
most more remarkable still was a
Berkshire wedding, of many years
ago, in which bridegroom and bride
numbered 16S years between them
he was IS and she but two years
younger; the two bridesmaids had
celebrated their SEVENTEEN birthday,
and the path to the altar was strewn
with flowers by six Of the BRIDE
groom's granddaughters.
In the eighteenth century wom-
an who was pilloried in Cheapside
and sentenced to six months impris-
onment had been married to no few
er than three members of her own
sex, whom in turn she robbed and
deserted; and at the same time two
women we're keeping a public house
at Poplar as man and wife, and 1t
was only on her death bed that the
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 first appear
ance at the altar being at the age of
fifteen, and her latest at forty-four.
A Mexican lady Sonora Rey Castillo.
buried seven husbands between
1880 and 1895, each of them dying a
violent death; a man of Bordeaux
only yielded up the ghost in 1772 af
ter he had welded his sixteenth
bride; Jerome tells of a widow who
had buried twenty-one husbands be-
fore she was united to a man. who
had already survived twenty wives;
and Evelyn beats this amazing rec
ord with the case of woman who
when he saw her was married to her
! twenty-fifth husband.
To return, however, to remarkable
| cases of mesallance, it is not long
since one of the best known kings of
! Europe made Il mOrganatic wife of
| the daughter of a caretaker of Lou
vain, whom he had already created
baroness; Archduke John of Aus
| tria married the pretty daughter of a
small country postmaster, who in
! boys clothes had acted as his postil-
ion; Archduke John Salvador sacri-
feed his royal rank to become the
| husband of ballet dancer, the
| daughter of obscure parents, and
| Archduke Ernest took to wife a
woman of still humber position, and
not long ago the son of this union
was head waiter liz Budapest cafe;
while Princess Josephine of Spain,
/ great aunt of King Alfonso, eloped
with Havana journalist.
Peter the Great made a wife and
| empress of a girl who had been a ser
want in the house of Lutheran min
lister at Marierburg; Sir Henry
Parkes, William Goblet and Thomas
Coutts, the millionaire banker, all
chose maids of all work for their life
partners, and Sir Gervaise Clifton,
the historian of Jamaica, had no
fewer than seven wives, each of
whom had been in his own service