MARRIAGE A' LA MODE—NEW STYLE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5345, 1 April 1879, Page 5

MARRIAGE A' LA MODE— NEW STYLE.

(FROM THE " WhiTEITAT,I, REVIEW.") : 'No amount of early closing on Sundays and withdrawal of the licenses of public dancing houses will keep our male bipeds from getting as thoroughly drunk 1 as any. of their fellows on the Continent, or our ' female element from boin.cj as human and frail as the typically abominable Frenchwoman. Hitherto, however, wo have been contented with being quit© as bad as other people and no averse, but .of late years a morbid ambition would appear to have sprung up in the breast of the golden youths of this country, a noble desire to excel in iniquity, and to not only soil themselves witlr mud, -but to drag all who bear their name into the gutter with thorn. It is not well to get drunk, but then we have bedn told that the climate of our island is, apt to lead to great temptations and undue indulgence in alcohol. It is reprehensible and deploroble for our sisters, daughters, and wives to forget their moral responsibilities and self-respect, and become 'tin* clean things on which society can but ' look with loathing; but we are shown that the great personal beauty of Englishwomen, Coupled with the fact that they are 'numerically superior to the men of this island, is a solution of the disagree J able problem, which if offensive is none j the less clear, true, and from a [pbisolophical point of view acceptable.' But what excuse can we find for such beings as wantonly kneel in the gutter to link themselves for ever with the foulness thereof, and thus bespatter with mud their belongings who would fain' keop clean ? Of late yaers the tendency has become more and more marked on the part of • Englishmen of good name and high social position to seek for themselves wives out of the purlieus of the Hay market and the groves of Chelsea and St. John's Wood, and to this fact there can be no parallel in the contemporary social history of any other civilised community. Frenchmen may gamble and spend all their money in the demi monde, but they do not marry into it ; Americans may drink and indulge in eccentric and murderous exploits with pistol and bowie-knives, but they do not marry Phrynes and Aspasias ; Germans may ' drink to excess, gamble away all they possess, and beat their : wives, but their wives are not flairs dv \ mal— weeds sprung from abomination and . vice. With us, however, it is different. At first we hoped it was but an evil epidemic and kept silent, trusting that ; the moral strength of our society ; would combat and overwhelm the. i disease ; but we find to our dis- i may that we wero disappointed, that the \ evil has become chronic, and threatens to bo lasting and ever increasing ; and ob- ' serving this we judge, though with much reluctance, that it is the /time to speak ' and bring the last and terrible but gene- \ rally effective remedy to bear, the strong , fresh air of pubiic opinion. Within the ' last few years ten men, all holding , high ' and social positions, bearing good names, : and not a few among them belonging to what would be termed in the Faubourg < St. Germain le gratln, have wantonly ; allied themselves to women picked from J the streets, giving their names snd titles } to be held until death by creatures whose • very names they would never under ordinary circumstances dare to mention . before a lady. A Marchioness, a future ; Duchess, and the wives of two baronets \ have been recruited from the ranks of , Us injures, and we only mention these" , currente calamo to give the strong color of • fact and reality to our thesis ; were we to '. pause and reflect, doubtless many other instances wonld come to our minds — the ' list might perhaps almost rival that of Rome's 3?iecruits.