Year: 1873




--=


MARRYING Il BARMALD


"If ever I marry q wife," caroled Ella, "Pu
"marry landlords daughter, That may SIT
ain the bar, And drink cold brandy-and-
"water.n Sir Hew Pollok, Of Pollok, Scotch
baronet, was somewhat OF the same MIND, tor
he married barmaid at Scarborough, who
thought, poor young woman, that she had
made q great catch and so she had, only she
caught great Tartar, from whom she Is now
seeking in the Court of Session to be sun
dered, on the ground of cruel treatment. 1t
did not turn out to be so fine to be called
"my lady" and live in Pollok Castle. We may
infer without much violence to the laws OF logic,
that q baronet who marries barmaid is not
ayerse to a social glass, or, in fact, to a great
number of conyivial beakers. Perhaps he was
not exactly sober when he led the blushing
Miss Green from her bar and beer-pots to the
hymeneal altar-if he was, it does not appear
that he has been sober since. Indeed, accord
ing to all the testimony, Sir Hew Is quite
paragon of potatOry exploits, always vibrating
between tipsiness and downright inebriety.
He was not irregular in his habits, for ne
regularly began to drink at four o'clock In
the morning. The servants, who did not IKE
to swear plumply to his intOxicatlon, all salG
moro mildly that he was usually under
"the influence of liquor" and that when
every bad he was in the habit of swearing"
One witness, q tenant of Sir Hew, with an
eye perhaps to his lease, qualified his testl-
mony. He had never heard the baronet swear,
excent TO say "Damn it!r-he had seen him
"happy,n but he never saw him miraklous
"drunk,n explaining that by miraculous drunk
ennness he meant very advanced stage OF
intoxication. We are obliged to add that her
Ladyship, as became one who had been bar
maid, was not of the total abstinence persua-
son but took brandy meat" drinking glass
for glass with the gentlemen at the table,
But Pollok Castle, with all this lmbibing, was
not jolly castle. Occasional sobriety seems
to be somewhat necessary to domestic hap
piness.


MIR. Thackeray, in one of his ballads, has
told us how British gentleman may treat
his wife. To begin with, Sir Hew maintained
collection of pistols and daggers in his bed
chamber-not nice playthings, it must be ad-
mitted, for man in his cups. He kept re-
yolver under his pillow, and this, we suppose,
Lady Pollok did not find soporftic. When he
was wakeful he amused himself in the night
and startled the household by discharging the
pistols The walls of the room were marked
with shots. AS for Lady Pollok, if she
did take brandy neat, she had some excuse for
the indulgence. Her husband was always
swearing at her, and when he wished TO be
specially savage he accused her of adultery
He took her one day for drive and being a
bit drunken than common, upset the drag and
hurt her badly. He ordered his gamekeeper
to shoot her pet dog, and the faithful vassal
obeyed. On the night of the overturn, lame
and bruised as she was, he pulled her from
the bed to the floor, and seized her by the
throat. There was Captain Anderson staying
in the house who interfered to protect the lady.
Sir Hew resenting this, was first reasoned
with and then knocked down. He was not
allowed by the Captain to get up until he had
promised to behave better. 1t will add to the
interest of this sweet domestic scene if we
state that oil the performers were IN their
night clothes. Lady Pollok was carried off to
the lodge on the shoulders of her maid, for
the poor woman was too lame to walk. She
turned her back upon the miserable castle the
next morning, and ran away from the beat
ings and the brandy never to return. 1t was
in evidence that there were great
many bloodhounds and mastiffs about
the premises, but the master of the
house seems to have been the most
brutal dog of all. We naturally pity any
woman treated as Lady Pollok was, but it
must not be inferred that she was totally
wanting in spirit. She sometimes shook her
fist in his face. She told Sir Hew that if she
were man she would give him q sound
thrashing. We are not exactly sure of her
relation to the Capt. Anderson who did ad-
minister corporal punishment to the inhamed
baronet. At any rate, as the husband was
jealous of him, the Captain should have gone
away.


Since the Mordaunt case which, we observe,
may possibly be tried again in the House of
Lords, we have had no story of British high
life more scandalous than this Scotch one.
The moral of it is simple. Baronets should
not marry barmaids, and should not drink too
much brandy and water We are ashamed to
say that Sir Hew pleads that he contracted
his thirsty habits by drinking at bars while
travelling in our own happy land. Though we
have no baronets and no barmaids, we still
have the brandy. To wise young marriage
able women we need say no more.


-


In this country the man who adyertses for wife
is always q thief, and the woman who answers is


4 II tlauo 10