The St. Mary banner., 1910-04-30

courage the worthy poor, comes anoth
/ er advance still more calamitous to tht
hearth and home The price OF hUs
| bands has gone up. Any Jewish sch3t
/ chen will vouch for it. The increase i.
/ along the line, from the plain. unvarn
ished business husband. uneducated
earning not more than S25 week, e
! the lawyer, doctor, or professional man
! with well-established patronage, who
| now comes as high as S25,C ,C0C for the
! families which can afford such lux
ury.
/ The accepted belief is that the schat-
! chen, or Jewish marriage broker, op-
, crates only for the poor and ignorant.
That side of the business covers only
one part Of very wide field. There
! are, according to conservative estimate Q
| about 5000 professional schatchens in
New York city, whose only means OF
support is the regulation ) percent CO
the marriage dowry OF every urars-
action. Besides these, so a Jew W2l.
Versed. in the affairs of his country
many again who while ostensibly en-
gagged in other pursuits do not desp.sa
arranging an occasional match Or "a
ceptins the perquisitvs.
The Schatchen in Real Life.
The traditional picture is the man
OF the tenements with a three-pcurd
watch chain and a polka-dotted vest,
whose work in life is to see his neigh
bors happily married Even in the
humber ranks the schatchen is gen.
orally man for the contracting par
ties have more confidence in the bus
mess acumen CT mankind and the high
er one goes in the marriage game the
more important does the management.
OF it's financial end become
Accordingly, the trail of ''the trans
actor which is the literal transia-
ton of the Yiddish term. reaches evel
to the brown-stOne front of the very
Well-to-do, although in that case the
father of either the prospective brid,
or bridegroom is generally forega
born and was brought up in the estah
lished custom of the Old World |
Shettos. 1t doesn't work as well with |
the present generation of American.
born youths and maidens, Polish Jew |
confided to the reporter, and told a |
recent little tragedy of real life re-
sulting from the clash of two different |
generations
This father had by industry and !
thrift arrived at a very considerable
fortune and lived in a prosperous
looking "brown-stone 'front.'" but he
bad let his daughter stay unmarried
to the ripe old age of twenty-five, be.
cause he was loath to part with his
only child. Last Spring, the Russian
father was aroused to his derelictior
OF paternal duty, and arranged a mar
riage for his daughter An unexpected
obstacle arose. for the girl brought
up to American ways wouldn't hear o:
the proceeding. She wouldn't be dow
cred, she said, only she called it
'sold,' to the horror of her father. She
even refused to meet the young man
whom her father now invited to the
lancial understanding. She would
be married fer love alone. she de-
Jared.
Not lacking in astuteness the father
sent the girl for the summer to a pop
nlar resort, well equipped to out
shine the other girls there. So she
net her Prince" fell in love, and
he wedding was set for December.
Everything was ready but the wedding
,oWn itself, when one day the fiancc
allied on father and demanded a $40.
100 settlement. The father had bee.
'lanning to present the young couple
With $4,000 as a gift, but he waxeJ
indignant at the man who pretended
owe when he wanted money" and de-
aged his demand till so near the wed
ing day that broken engagement
you'd be almost as much scandal in
is world as a divorce.
In his indignation the older man I
roke the engagement, but told his
aughter that he had discovered that
er intended had tuberculosis and
ould live only a few months. The
irl persisted that she would marry {
I'm all the same, so she was told the !
ruth, and now the girl is weeping s
er eyes out over her lost illusions. b;
Sometimes the parents become Am
too. An Austrian, rated in {
radstreet's at $4,000, announced to
II his business friends at the time of t
er debut that Maud won't receive {
ne cent till my death, and I'm pretty
ealthy and expect to live a good long
lille yet" This, however, is one of