"ACTUAL NATURAL HISTORY."

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 71, 23 March 1918, Page 13

"ACTUAL NATURAL HISTORY."

THE NATIONAL MATRIMONIAL! AGENCY. | Conversation in an English railway carriage recently turned on the corre-spondents-in the London "Daily Mail" who/have suggested'Governmcnt encouragement of marriages by a "national matrimonial agency."

A meek man with a sandy moustache said he thought it an excellent idea. "I don't agree with you,'' remarked acidly a broken-looking man with a large basket of household supplies on his lap. "What I would like to see is a national anti-matrimonial agency telling people how not to get married; telling men especially what sort of women to dodge and how to dodge them. It would be too late to do mc any good, but as a mere humanitarian" I would gladly pay another twopence in the pound income tax for the upkeep of the agency." Turning sharply on the meek man, he asked: "Are you married your-| self?"

, "No, sir; I am a bachelor." • "Just as I thought," sneered the broken-looking man.

"If you think that marriage is the ideal state," asked a man in the corner of the compartment, "why are you a bachelor?" .....<■

The' meek man seemed to be rather dismayed by the hostile attitude of these married fellow-travellers. "Why am I a bachelor?" he faltered. "Well, I'm not a bachelor by choice."

"Sheer luck, I suppose?*' asked the broken-looking man.

"On the contrary; sheer nervousness. I'm frightened half out of my skin by the fair sex."

"You'll be frightened right out of it if you marry one of them," growled the man in the porner. "I tremble when they look at mc," resumed the meek man. "So do I," said the man in the corner. "At least when one of them does." "Every time I've tried to propose," continued the meek man, "I've stuttered and stammered." "It's not a complaint—it's a gift," observed the man in the corner. "But still," maintained the meek man, "I think that 'Miss Right is somewhere —if I could only find "her." "It's tempting Providence," agreed the broken-looking man. "I met my own wife on a seaside holiday. Within a week "we were engaged." "A week!" explaimed the meek man. "It would take mc a year. How did you propose to her?"

The broken-looking man stared at the meek man in unfeigned surprise. .-He regarded him as visitors at the Zoo might regard a new animal. "How—did —I propose?" he repeated elowly. He looked for help to the company "in the compartment. They stared back at him as men who would say, "This is beyond us."

The man in the corner helped things out. "Don't you realise," he said gently to the meek man—gently as one would talk to children—"that no man has ever yet proposed to a woman?"

"I didn't realise it," said the meek man faintly.

"And yet you're talking rubbish about a national matrimonial agency. Don't you know that every woman ie a matrimonial agency, working like steam for one client, herself? Don't you know that every girl's mother is another matrimonial agency?"

"Then how is it?" asked the meek man, "that I, who want to. get married, who have a comfortable income, and am in the prime of life, cannot find a wife?" "Heaven knows," said the man in the corner, "unless they all think you are one of those ruthless professional bigamists."

The train stopped and the meek man alighted with dignity. "I opened a sensible discussion," he said stiffly,, "and asked for sensible opinions—and I meet nothing but buffoonery."

"No, old chap," said the broken man sadly; "you have heard actual natural history."