PECULIAR WEDDINGS.

Evening Star, Issue 11451, 19 January 1901, Page 8

PECULIAR WEDDINGS.

ROMANTIC AND OTHERWISE. A few weeks ago (says an English exchange) John H. Holwick married Elizabeth Shore at a chiirch in the suburbs of Manchester. The bridegroom, who is the own fur of several large cotton mills, which bring, him at least SE10;000 a year, appeared in the conventional frock-coat. The bride was in rags, with, a tattered drab shawl over her head. The marriage was the happy ending to a romance in real life. A year ago John Holwick was standing in Nfoseley street, Manchester, looking into the window of a jeweller’s shop. It was a cold, wet evening, and people hurried by, with collars turned up, and dripping umbrellas held low. On the other side of the street was a pawnbroker’s shop, and as he glanced round he saw a poorly-dressed girl, with a tattered shawl drawn tightly over her head, stop, draw something from her pocket, and enter. A few moments later she reappeared with something clutched tightly in one hand. Out of enriousily the wealthy manufacturer followed her. He saw her enter a baker’s shop, and purchase a loaf of bread. A poor little barefooted urchin ran up to him and begged a copper. Hardly thinking what he was. doing, he brushed the child roughly aside. The girl saw what had happened, and. beckoning to the boy, pulled off the top of the loaf, and handed it to him. Holwick was so ashamed of himself that ie hurried away without a word ; but a few days later he met the girl again, and found out where she lived. Her father was out of employment, and was surprised a few days later to receive an offer of a good position from the rich mill owner. Holwick called at his house, saw his daughter again, and proposed. It was at his wish that she appeared at their wedding in the ragged dress she was weaving when he first met her. WHAT HE WORE. A large leather apron is not a becoming addition to an immaculate frock-coat and while waistcoat; but this is the attire that Ernest Clifford, of Northampton, wore when he wedded the wealthy Miss Ethel Blake. Mix years ago Clifford was a shoemaker in Northampton, earning twenty-five shillings a week in a large factory. One afternoon some visitors were being shown over the works. Among them was a well-to-do leather factor, who jokingly offered a prize of £5 to the man who could produce a wellfinished pair of boats in sixty minutes. Young Clifford took the offer, and actually accomplished (he task with thirty-five seconds to spare. The man who laid the wager was so struck with the smartness of the. performance that lie offered Clifford a good situation in his own business, sent him to Germany to study the leather trade in that country, and afterwards took him into partnership. A few years later the young Northampton shoemaker was in receipt of an income of £5,C00 a year, and married the daughter of his benefactor, Miss Ethel Blake, who insisted on him wearing at their wedding the old leather apron. THE TRAMP’S WEDDING. When a well-known financier died two years ago it was found that in Ms will he had left his second son, Thomas Hunt, with whom he had once quarrelled, the sum of £50,000. The young man had no expectation of coming into any money at his father’s death, and had gone to Australia to seek his fortune. For three years he worked as an ordinary miner at the Broken Hill mines, and became engaged to Aline Murray, the daughter of a rich sheep fanner. Her father refused to give his consent to the match, and Thomas Hunt, in despair, threw up Ms job at the mine and went to another part of the country. Luck was against him. He went down, down, until he was nothing more than a tram]), or “ sundowner,” without hope nr ambition in. life. One evening he reached a farmhouse, weak, and ill, worn out with hopeless, purposeless tramping. He begged for a meal, for work—for anything. His old fiancee was staying at the farm with some relations, and she came to the door. She did not recqgnise him, but he knew her, and slunk away. He could not let her know he. was a tramp. Three days later he saw an advertisement in a six-mnnths-old paper. He wrote to the address givenj and found that he was heir to a fortune. Then he called on Miss Murray again, gained her father's consent, and bought the engagement ring. Three months later Miss Aline Murray, in white satin and orange blossoms, married a dilapidated sundowner, in a very ragged coat and a hat without a brim. “When he was poor,” he said, “he was ashamed of his old clothes ; now he was worth £30,000 he was rather proud of them.”