THE MARRIAGE MARKET IN ROME.
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The business of catching impecunious counts, of magnetizing bankrupt marquises, and of plucking penniless princes, as practised by American women, appears to absorb all the attention in Rome at present. The rage for titles is said to be so great among some classes of Americans resident in the Holy City, that the only song one hears at evening parties and receptions is the one commencing, "When I can read my title clear." We should not be surprised any day to hear that a marriage market had been opened on one of the plazas of Rome, the quotations of which would read something after this fashion: Husbands dull and declining; American beauties more active; foreign mammas less firm; American securities in great demand; the market in princes somewhat stronger; holders of titles much sought after; brains without money a drug in the market; "bogus" counts at a discount; the genealogy market panicky and falling; the stock of nobility rapidly depreciating; the pedigree exchange market flat and declining, etc., etc. This traffic in titles, this barter in dowries, this swapping of "blood" for dollars, is an offense too rank for words to embody it. The trade in cadetships is mild in comparison with it, because in these commercial transactions with counts, while one party may be the purchaser, both parties are inevitably seen to be sold. The business may only be excusable on the theory that "an even exchange is no robbery." But so long as brains are not bartered for a title, or beauty sacrificed for a pedigree, we should not complain. Of money, there is plenty in America; and, while marquises are in the market, let Shoddy continue to pipe for its own. A fig for Macbeth's philosophy that "blood will have blood." We modify it in these degenerate days to "blood will have money:" |
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"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare; And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair." |
| "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." "SHOO FLY, don't bodder me." "Benedict's Time." THE honeymoon. Homoeopathic Cure for Hydrophobia. BARK. Ode to my Washerwoman. $2 50. |
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