A ROMANTIC RE-MARRIAGE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1587, 29 April 1887, Page 3

A ROMANTIC RE-MARRIAGE.

A despatch from Milwaukee in an American paper snys:—Tweiity years ago Charlesß Scoffin, of Kacine,wooed and won in marriage Miss Eiiza H. Smith, an accomplished and beautiful young lady, residing at Delavau. Two hours after the ceremony, and while the wedding festivities were at their height, the groom received a message which called him to Montana without delay. With a hasty kiss for his bride of two hours, young Scoffin departed, leaving a promise to return as soon as possible. Then followed a long period of waiting for the loving girl; week succeeded week, year follcwedyear, and still no tidings were heard from her truant husband. AtleugthMrsSccffin obtained a divorce, but constant to her old love, remained single. Eirly last week the old friends of Scoffin, in Racine, were surprised by a visit from him. Before he had been in the city many hours he learnt of the presence of his tride of 20 years before. Scoffin who had remained true to his love, though apparently neglectful, lost no time in calling on Miss Smith. What passed between them at the interview that followed is not known but the explanations offered must have been satisfactory, as the next day the wedding bells were ringing merrily over the re-marriage of the old time lovers,

MILD FOEMS OF IDIOCY. In the more offensive forms of mild idiocy there is always the disregard of the wellbeing of others. Tliere is the peripatetic idiot, who is always stopping to talk to somebody else, in the middle of the sidewalk or on a frequented corner, taking painß to do this when the streets are fullest of pedestrians. There is the dramatic idiot, who sits behind, or in front of you at the theatre, and keeps telling his companion what tho actors are going to do next. The"e is a female species of this genus who may be the supposed intellectual wife of a husband of well authenticated stupidity, to whose enlightenment she devotes during the progress of the play all her attention. Her volubility exceeds that of a thousand-dollar-a-year commercial traveller, and her voice is of that carrying, F-in-alt. kind that aggravates the listener more than the filing of a saw, or a pine splinter vibrating in the winter wind. Let it be said to the discredit of its sex that the musical idiot is usually a male. If you have an ear for music and it is a favourite opera, he takes pains to sit beside you, and when the marvellous voice of the great tenor or the astounding organ of the wonderful soprano is going up like Shelley's skylark, he beats time with his feet and emits harsh, guttural sounds that he thinks resembles the air of tho singer. The exquisite joys of music are evanescent at the best, and the musical soul is sensitive to the slightest discord. Nothing can be done with a pachyderm of this species. There are fools and idiots so strangely constituted that they will not believe they are fools and idiots even if you tell them. His is one of that kind, and the law, alas, does not allow you to kill him, nor can he be put in a dark cell, like the prisoner of Chillon, and fed on mouldy bread and tainted meat till his discordant life fitly ends in a lingering death. There are other forms of musical idiocy which are displayed in acrobatic feats at untimely hours on the piano, in tampering with that exquisite instrument, the violin, and in eliciting earpiercing sounds from the flute. Bat the types are too commonplace for scientific classification. So, also, are those types of idiocy that open all the windows in midwinter and insist on having them all closed in midsummer. Once in a crowded theatre the orchestra ceased its efforts with a great crash and an abrupt silence, and a shrill voice was borne to the uttermost parts of the vast auditorium which said—" I like mine fried in butter." The incident is mentioned in all the histories of the period. It was one of those idiotic persons, a female in this instance, who, when they do get to talking, can be stopped by neither a steam-brake nor the side of a mountain. It is a numerous class, and its representatives travel much on the street-cars and often visit theatres and concerts, where they insist on relating their private affairs in loud, nerveharrowing tones. Thev have the kind of voice which, heard behind you in the street, ever pursues you, maintaining its penetrating quality in the universal din long after iti owner has b p en distanced and engulfed in the heedless crowd. This class of idiots is most vicious and offensive. They have an acute form of their malady transcending anodynes and anaesthetics, and demanding heroic treatment Nothing will suffice but to extirpate the present generation and slaughter their children.

The idiocy of the average boy is of an exaggerated kind, it can hardly be classed as mild. He might properly be called a howling idiot, except that, not having arrived at years of discretion, he is partially excusable for the mental aberration which causes him to violate all the proprieties. A little later he becomes an alolescent, when his idiocy takes a sentimental form, less disagreeable, though equally selfish. The male biped just entering manhood imagines that he is the centre of the solar system, and that about him revolve all the planets and their moons. He is not quite certain about the universe. If he walks he thinks everybody is looking at him. When he speaks he imagines everyone is listening. He regards mankind as only an enlargement or broadening out of the family circle, of which he he has been the idol. Nothing but hard knocks cures this form of idiocy, and it is a sovereign remedy except in respect of certain cases specified. But the forms and phases of idiocy that characterise advancing years — the simper of old maidenhood, the girlish affectation of matrons who should have lparned something in a past full of stsrn experiences, the weakness for the front row that characterises baldness, and all the little artifices by which one attempts to wage a losing battle with time—lack interest and repel sympathy. With varieties not mentioned there is enough material to to make a work like Agassiz's " Fishes " or Audubon's " snd he who devotes his time to it will be sure to make money, and may enhance his fame.—San Francisco Chronicle.