The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-07-16


 For instance" he repeated you've heard the story of the young nan and young woman who were on a Highland avenue car, and were chatting along when the car suddenly halted at station where number of new houses were being built"
 How'd you like to live in one of those little cottages on the hill up there," he said for want of something better to keep the conversation going. "I think it would be lovely" she re- piled, quick as a flash, then we could go to the Country Club every night to dinner See there's a cottage for rent"
 It worked" beautifully, for they are new seen frequently at the Country Club for dinner and seem quite happily married.
 George Moore, the great English novelist, tells of the many letters that he received when he published his famous book, q Forbid the Banns" T should like to tell you" he relates, how one writer communicated with lhim, that I owe you debt of grati- tude Your book was an incentive to my lover to propose. He took it up at random and, reading the words, Would you be surprised if I told you I loved you took a pencil, underlined them, and passed the book to me. Of course, after that the thing was done, and we were engaged shortly afterward." Not long ago In well known Bakery" in town, there was a sign which read: Wedding Cakes Baked at Short No- tice."
 I'm told that four brides patronze this Bakery now, for sentimental reasons
 girl told me the other day that an other girl told her about it.
 IL |. 4t~... down town (she happened 10 be stem ographer) every morning on the same car with a man who fast developed a decided interest In her.
 One morning when he was feeling par ticuarly prosperous aud optimistic. and quite able to take care of a wife, he looked over toward the Bakery as they passed, and nodding at the sign. he said;
 How about it?'
 "It was the most sudden proposal of my life, the girl declared, and very mucf embarrassed, she replied: It's awfully foolish to get a wedding cake when one hasn't a rousseau"
 You've got a whole lifetime to get clothes'' the man said. "and it's shame to let a perfectly good wedding cake stay unbaked for so silly reason-so let's go order one at once"
 There's a delicious Scotch play which I read recently in which a designing Spin ster. after much scheming, Hands" a widower.
 His friends suspect the truth; that SHE did the proposing.
 They knew that he owed her money and was unable to pay it.
 Now tell the truth" one of them said to him, didn't she propose to your"
 Well" he replied, "I would ma call eet a proposal. It was more of an ulti- matum.''
 There have been many differing opinions about women proposing, and we get them from sources even more interesting than a prosy old New England lecturer who maybe got his information from an old, dry as dust Encyclopedia.
 Wasn't 1t Shakespeare q always lay it on Shakespeare when I'm not certain, or was 1t Ouda, who said, "A young man married is a young man marred.''
 Well, anyway, he Is. so far all the other girls chances are concerned.
 Kipling claims with cruel insistence that "Ie travels fastest who travels alone" all of which may De true, but still it isn't quite fair to women if the men think that they DO really propose. to say that when a mans married, he's marred.
 Occasionally, even these days-yes, dur ing Leap Year, even, when the ancient and honorable nrerOgatlVe IS granted To women to propose-men continue to do so. And oftener than is suspected probably by other men they get turned down good and hard"
 As far back as 1928 an ancient Scottish parliament made a law upon which to hang the right of woman to take the in itiative in Leap Year, but as to the REAL inventor of the custom many attribute It to Julius Caesar.
 It would seem that he did it shortly after he was married to Calpurnia, and evidently after he realized that he had not given to his diumvirate the consider ation he had put into planning the cam paign that discovered "all Gaul to be di- vided into three parts
 "'Methinks," Caesar said to himself, and to a faithful Boswell whose tablets have been discovered in the ruins of Corinth, that marriage is the greater part of woman's existence. Oalpurnia tells me IS times a day that it is; therefore do I be- lieve that women should be the ones to make the choice of their husbands But this would be too great revolution for me to advocate at present, especially since women have not the Suffrage. and I shall be candidate in the Spring Elec- tion. However, I shall institute in ny revised Calendar system whereby wom- en may one year out of every four have the privilege of selecting their spouses. Valei'