WHEREAS, thank God! my wife Rachel has left my bed and board for the hereafter mentioned provocation : this is to give notice that I will pay no debts of her contracting after this date.-We were married young; the match was not of our own choosing, but a made-up one between our parents. "My dear," says her mother, with a nose like a gourdhandle, to her best beloved, "now if we can get our neighbour Charles to consent to a marriage between our Rachel and his son, we shall have no more care upon our hands, and live the rest of our days in undisturbed repose." Here my beloved began to whimper ; the truth is, she loved tenderly, loved another—and they knew it; he had no property, however, and that was their only idea of happiness: but she could not conceive how they could feast in joy upon her misery. "Hold your tongue," says her surly father, "don't you think your parents know better how to direct your attachments than you do yourself?" "Yes, my dear," says the mother, "you should always be governed by your parents-they are old and experienced and you are too young to think for yourself." The old dad and mam forgot that they were a runaway love match at the age of nineteen. But poor Rachel said not a word for she was afraid of her daddy's cowhide, that he had used sixteen years on nobody's back but his daughter's. She seemed reckless of her fate, was almost stupid, and did not know that she could alter it for the worse. My father, by persuasion and argument, dazzled my fancy with the eight negroes that would be her portion, "which," said he, " put upon the quarter section which I shall give you, will render you independent, and you are a fool if you do not live happily with such an angel.”—“Angel!" said I, but I said no more, for my dad (in peace rest his ashes !) would have flown into a passion with the rapidity that powder catches fire; and its ebullition, like the blaze, would scorch me, I well knew.-We were married. I thought, as her father had ruled her with so tough a whip, I could do it with a hickory switch, and for my leniency gain her everlasting gratitude. We have now lived together six years, and have had no offspring except a hearty quarrel every little while. In truth I found her more spirited than I imagined; she was always ready to tally word for word, and blow for blow; but I never used a switch till the other day, always taking my open hand. The other day, coming home from work, very much fatigued and hungry, I found my wife in rather an unusual fit of passion, scolding some pigs that had overset the buttermilk. "Rachel," says I, "make me some coffee."-"Go to says she. I could not stand this; I had never heard her swear before. "I will chastise you for that," says I. Villain," said she, "I'm determined to bear no more of your ill usage. Instead of using the mild and conciliating language which a husband ought to use, you always endeavour to beat me into measures-touch me with that whip, I will leave your house, and take my niggers with me too, so I will." She had said such things so often that I did not regard her, and belaboured her handsomely. The next morning after I had gone out to work, away she bundles sure enough, and when I came home at noon, I found the house emptied of bag and baggage, and all the negroes taken but the three that were at work with me. I have lived happily since, however; and she may keep all she took, if she will stay at her crooked-nose mammy's and never trouble my house again. Laurence County, Miss. J. JOHNSTONE. This is a vigorous specimen of condensation, and contains, according to the present standard, quite enough plot for a three-volume novel, with special opportunities for essays on the horrors of slavery. If any rising authoress —we will give way to a lady—should happen to stumble across this book, and see her opportunity, we will waive all rights, as, after trying to sketch out the story, it was abandoned in despair, owing to our inability to keep our wandering attention from the next advertisement, which gives a companion picture, though the complaint is this time laid by the woman: $100 REWARD-For the apprehension of Lewis Turtle, a tall man, about 50 years, has considerable money and a high forehead, long face and lantern jawed man, a bad man, with a fist like a giant, and has often beat me, and I want him to end his days in the Penitentiary where he belongs, and he wears a grey coat, with a very large mouth, and one blue eye, and one blind blue eye, and a hideous looking man, and now living with the 7th woman, and me having one child to him, and he has gone off, and I want him brought slap up in the law, with blue pants. He ought to be arrested and has a $100 of my money, and a bald headed rascal, full of flattery and receipt, and she is a bad woman, and her little girl calls him "papa" and is called Eliza Jane Tillis, and a boy blind of one eye, and he is not a man who has got any too much sense, nor her. And he stole $100 from me, and some of my gold and silver, and ought to be caught and I will never live with him again, no never, he is a disgrace. And I would like to have him caught up and compelled to maintain me and his child, as I am his lawful wedded wife, and have the certificate of marriage in my possession. NANCY TURTLE. Coherency was evidently not Nancy's forte, and if she entertained her turtle-dove with much conversation as per sample, he was hardly to be blamed for trying a little change. In 1853 a sad and suffering husband sought consolation from the Muse, and published his lines in a Connecticut paper. Though not strictly in accordance with the rules laid down by authorities, they contain a good deal in a small space :— - Julia, my wife, has grown quite rude; She has left my board, She has took my bed, She has gave away my meat and bread, She has left me in spite of friends and church, She has carried with her all my shirts. Now ye who read this paper, Since she cut this reckless caper, I will not pay one single fraction For any debt of her contraction. East Windsor, Conn. Aug. 4, 1853. LEVI ROCKWELL. Another husband also flies to verse for consolation, and records both his experiences and his determination in the following notice :— Whereas my pet, my pretty toy, My wife, my Lizzie J., Has left my bed and my employ, BIG SUAMICO, Oct. 13, 1870. HENRY KAnute. Still another husband, after publishing some supposed grievances in the public prints, is made to see the error of ways, and eats the leek in the following manner, and in his a New York paper. Verse is here the sign not of the disease but of the remedy : WHEREAS I, Daniel Clay, through misrepresentation, was induced to post my wife, Rhoda, in the papers; now I beg leave to inform the public, that I have again taken her to wife, after settling all our domestic broils in an amicable manner; so that everything, as usual, goes on like clockwork. Divorc'd like scissars rent in twain, Each mourn'd the rivet out : Now whet and riveted again, They'll make the old shears cut. With a notification from a maligned as well as injured wife, this selection will probably be considered complete : WHE NOTICE. HEREAS my husband Chas. F. Sandford, has thought proper to post me, and accuse me of having left his bed and board without cause, etc., I wish to make it known that the said Charlie never had a bed, the bed and furniture belonging to me, given to me by my father; the room and board he pretended to furnish me were in Providence, where he left me alone, while he staid at the Valley with his "Ma." He offered me $200 to leave him and go home, telling at the same time that I could not stay at the place he had provided for me, and as 1 have never seen the named sum, I suppose he will let me have it if I can earn the amount. It was useless for Charlie to warn the public against trusting me on his account, as my father has paid my bills since my marriage, as before. Moral.-Girls, never marry a man not weaned from his "Ma," and don't marry the whole family. North Providence, July. 1, 1871. ELEANOR J. Sandford. From such advertisements as the foregoing to those which emanate from persons desirous of becoming married is but a step; though, as has been already shown, most of the applications which come under the head of Matrimonial in the New York papers hardly justify the selection. Here is one, of a fair and honourable type enough, but it is fifty years old, being from the New York Morning Herald of July 2, 1824. This probably accounts for its really meaning marriage, and nothing else : WANTED immediately a young LADY of the following descrip tion (as a wife) with about 2000 dollars as a patrimony: Sweet temper, spend little, be a good housewife and born in America; and as I am not more than 25 years of age I hope it will not be difficult to find a good wife. N. B. I take my dwelling in South Second Street, No. 273. Any lady that answers the above description will please to leave her card, This swain in his anxiety has forgotten to give either name or initials, so we cannot take steps to see whether or not he succeeded in getting a "rale Yankee gal." The advertisements of the present day are mainly of the character already quoted from the Sunday Mercury, in proof whereof we take one cut at random from a paper published three thousand miles away from that estimable journal, viz., the San Francisco Chronicle: Two WO FUN-LOVING YOUNG LADIES would like to correspond with an unlimited number of young gentlemen; object, fun. Address, Roxey Hastings and Gracie Baker, Virginia, Nevada. jy17 2t* This is barefaced enough, in all conscience; but it is by no means out of the way, and will stand as a fair example of the rest. From the Waverley Magazine, Boston-which is not a magazine as we understand the term, but a large broadsheet periodical-of four years back, we extract a batch of communications, which for convenience might be called matrimonial, but which have little to do with marriage : CORRESPONDENCE. Two Dollars Each Address For One Insertion. A YOUNG MAN of good standing in society, of refinement and education, desires an unlimited number of young-lady correspondents. Respectability and education the only requisites. Object, agreeable amusement during these long winter evenings. All letters answered. Photographs exchanged if desired. Address GEORGE MEADE, box 125, Middleburg, Schoharie County, N.Y. |