An American told me that he once went a long journey in the same railway carriage with an infirm, hoary old man of eighty, who was accompanied by a girl of scarce more than twenty. This young woman was strikingly beautiful. My American friend admitted to me that the sight of her lovely face had the effect of making him fall quite in love with her before their five days' journey was over. He did not have an opportunity of conversing with her; but on arriving at their destination, he resolved to put up at the same hotel as the old man, so as to perhaps have a chance of making more ample acquaintance with his fair charge. To find out the name of the young girl and her venerable grandfather, he waited to sign his name in the hotel register until the patriarch had inscribed his own. Imagine his feelings when he read:
"Mr. X. and wife."
Here is a joke that I culled from a Washington paper. Is it a joke?
"A bachelor lately advertised for a wife. A typographical error changed his age from 37 to 87; but it made no difference, for he received over 250 applications, from ladies ranging in age from 16 to 60, and all promising love and devotion to the rest of his existence."
Here is another, which I extract from a comic paper. The author seems to believe that the American mother does not look on such marriages with displeasure:
"Mother.—'So you have engaged yourself to Mr. Jones. You must be a goose. He has neither fortune nor position. I know he may one day be well off; his grandfather may leave him part of his fortune, perhaps.'
"Daughter.—'But, mamma, it is his grandfather I am engaged to.'
"Mother.—'Kiss me, my child; you are an angel!'"
Whatever may be said on the subject, these marriages—I was going to say these prostitutions—are but the exception; but the exception is too frequent to be possible to pass it by in silence.