Year: 1868

"Cornelius O'Dowd,' in late number Of
Bldckwood, discusses the question of marriage in
| pleasant way. We Gull few passages:
Is life really life if must pass it on the
tight rope? Is existence worth having where it
is eternally question of balancing-swaying to
this side and bending to that?


1t is proven that all persons have vocation
for marriage, and is conjugalsm per Sc certain
to requite those who, to attain it, must divide
between two what they had already found barely
sufficient for one? These are the simple ques-
tions which we have need of philosopher to
ask or answer for US. If one were simply to pro-
nounce from what appears the surface of life
and it is very hard to go deeper-we should
say that the single people, especially the men,
have the best of it. They more in request
among their friends, available for more atten-
tions, and keep longer young than their married
brethren.


! The double-barreed egotism of marriage spoils
many good fellow and destroys the charms Of
many a delightful woman. The frm-that ter
rible nership-crops up at every moment,
and routs that glorious spontaneity, that dellc-
ious responsibility, we once remembered
| 1 have patience with those people who
want to marry on what it is puzzle to them to
live singly upon. They must be moral, forsooth,
at the cost of reducing some unhappy girl to
drudgery, on the false pretence-for it is false
of loving her.


"Why can't they let it alone?'' as the great
master of common sense said of a less eventfuf
contingency.


| have met more pleasant and companonabls
people among the single than the married but
there is a canting notion abroad that marrlageis
| a sort of backbone for good behavior, and SO
| the curate must be married, and the doctor
ought to be married. don't know how far the
| theory goes, or whether lady's shoemaker
should have wife, but I'm sure her coiffeur
ought. hope we shall soon hear the last of this
| tresome controversy for if any man wishes
positively to ascertain, from his personal expert
ence, whether it be safe to marry on flo0 per
annum, let him commit small misdemeanor in
Ireland, and be sent to Jail for three months.
If his constitution stands the detary-the seven
ounces of Cruel and pinch of barley per diem
he may have his bans published the day he
comes out, and certainly there will be nothing
in his absorbent system to interfere with his
happiness.


But it is a mistake to suppose that marriage is
a necessity, except to three volume novel. l
am certain that large number of people are not
made for that species of companionship. Mind,
| | am not enamored of Mormonism or Spiritual
wifery, nor have | the slightest sympathy with
Agapenones. What desire to insist on is, that
our present day civilization inculcates conjugal-
ism too indiscrimnately, and takes most unjust
iiable to support its position. One Of
| these, and the least commendabe of all, is to
disparage those who called old maids. /
have seen many timid rider in hunting field
| jeered into riding at a fence that cost him q
{" cropper;' and | am convinced that many wo-
men driven into marriage to escape the OBJ
loquy and sarcasm of belonging to that maligned
category. 1t is no exaggeration to say 4" ma
ligned." I would ask any one who has seen
much of life-who has, to say, been man of
the world, watching its ways and studying its
doings-l would ask him has he ever met in any
section of humanity greater kndiness, gentle-
ness, and patience than among these same old
maids? Where has he found more hearty,
genial, generous natures? Where sound views
of life disfgured by fewer prejudices? Where
more thorough charity in discussing the mo-
tives? Where, in one word, less of those very
attributes by which it has pleased the world to
characterize this class?


have done. will only add that instead Of
heaping rdcule on the condition of unmarried
women and, out of sheer derison, driving them
to accept anybody anybody as husbands, let
us accord them all the Difference and regard we
bestow others and let US not forget, in the
presence of some sold maid " whose qualities of
mind and nature have charmed us, and whose
traces of beauty not few nor faint that if we
do deem matrimony the great prize of life, it is
a living shame to our sex that such woman
should be single.


| If have wandered from my text of I" Marri-
ages on Starvation Allowances" it is simply
because have not that overweenng impression
of conjugalism that would recommend any one
to face beggary to attain it, any more than
would advise man to lay out his last shilling
to buy a ticket in the lottery.


MEN AND WOMEN BATHING WITHOUT THE Ac:
CUsToMED FIG-LEAF.-A correspondent of the
I'll i.