HUSBANDS.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 656, 4 March 1909, Page 3

HUSBANDS.

Husbands are the natural product of most civilised countries. They are plentiful in most of the United States of America, being scarcest in Utah, and Massachusetts, where each lady owns but a fraction of a husband, or none at all. Those owning no more than a morbid interest in a husband m called old maids.

'Although the .host husbands in this country are acknowledged by experts to be indigenous to the soil, those commanding bh-e highest market pfices arc the imported varieties, because of their expensive labels. The Crown brand brings the largest figure. The husband is a wry and elusive animal, fleeing for safety at the first noise liko a skirt .to his lair in clubs, offices, and other remote caves of his habitat; but he may be cajoled forth by an appearance of indifference on the part of the trapper, as his curiosity cad always be aroused by the strange' creature who could remain immune to his charms; after which he may be easily oaught anywhere in broad daylight (though a white night-light or mooncalcium is preferable), in a trap composed of frou-irou, talcum, golden locks, and flattery.

There is a tradition to the effect that the earliest husband;catclier was a clumsy'contrivance made of line handsewing attached to a spinning-wheel, decorated with home-made preserves put up in ft syrup of sweet disposition, and sealed in commioiisense jars. Once secured with a matrimonial halter tied in a diamond hitch, the husband usually 'becomes quite tame, and will eat from the hand and sign cheques at will, There arc more than futy-sevcn varieties of husbands at large and in captivity, but they are broadly classed as good and bad, by their respective owners or keepers called wives, Since the wife is so constituted that she can believe anything she sets her mind to, she can easily persuade herself that a bad husband is a good one and vice ■versa—a merciful provision of Providence for marital happiness. The American hustwnd is called by his transatlantic compeers a beast of burden; to which lib imay very justly retort that the transatlantic husband is a beast of prey, or otherwise, but always : [a beast, and that It's a White Man's Burden, anyway. All of which proves that the highest grade extant has his permanent habitat in these United States of America, - Lilian Paschal Day, in Success.