COURTING UNDER CURIOUS CONDITIONS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2679, 6 January 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

COURTING UNDER CURIOUS CONDITIONS.

( Tit-Bits ) Despite his proverbial blindness, the little love-god is possessed of wit and wisdom which often render him superior to adverse circumstances. The following salient examples are ample proof of the truth of our theory. A Scottish lassie, who had been harshly separated from her favourite laddie by the dictates of disapproving parents, found means of communicating with her exile lover through the medium of a pigeon-post from her chamber window. The messages were delicately recorded on rice-paper, and then attached to the legs of the feathered couriers, who conveyed them to their cotes at the remote farmhouse where the lover lived. So a constant correspondence was maintained, until happier fortune rendered the ruse no longer needful. On one of the American railways, some time since, a romantic incident occurred under circumstances of a singular character. A young girl, residing at a remote station, fell passionately in love with a,famous en-gine-driver on the express route of that section of the line. .In order that she might be near to him, she donned the masculine dress, and got a position as fireman on her lover’s engine. For a time he did not discover her secret, but,when her ruse stood revealed, he so admired her pluck that he proposed marriage to her then and there on the tender, and was accepted while the train rushed through the route at sixty miles an hour. The sequel was a very happy union. Probably one of the most novel methods of making love was that adopted by a German student. A very lovely young girl; whom he had long worshipped in secret, was suddenly taken ill, and did not recover. He attended her funeral, and returned to his lodgings in a state of profound sorrow. That night he dreamed that she had not died, but was merely in a trance. The dream so impressed him, that he rose in the early dawn and went to her grave. He cleared away the earth, forced open the coffin, and was just in time to aid her in a return to cion-: sciousness. Then and there he opened his heart to her, and became her accepted lover.; They are now happily wedded. |

A sailor lad, residing at Plymouth, pro-: posed to his sweetheart by means of thej heliograph signals, which he had first taught her during their earlier acquaintance. The lad flashed his messages of love from hiscabin window in the surging Sound, and his‘ : lady-elect translated them and gave.him his: answer—a favourable one— from her cham-j her window, high up the pleasant Plymouth; Hoe.

A proposal of marriage in a prison cell is; unique enough. ■ This took place in a Russian, settlement, where a party of suspects were; sojourning on their way to exile in. remote! Siberia. One of the number —an absolutely! innocent man—asked that he might be per j mitted to see a lady who was then residing: at the settlement. The request was granted. 1 The lady, who was his long sweetheart, came to him at once, and was plucky enough; to engage to marry him that day. She then accompanied him to the mines, where she stayed near him until the unjust sentence had expired, when they- returned to enjoy their freedom in their native city, Moscow. A certain naval officer, now happily married, first wooed and won his wife in the peculiar precincts of a diving-bell. He was acting as guide to a party of ladies who wished to inspect the diving-bell. While engaged in showing them the apparatus attached thereto, he became violently enamoured of the beauty of one of the ladies, and, with hie characteristic deci-ion, asked her sotto voice to become his partner in life. The attraction must have been mutual, for the lady at once accepted his proposal. Another original wooer, in order to escape the unwelcome attentions of the maternal parent who stood between him and the lady of his choice, invited the latter to accompany him on a balloon trip. The voyage was ventured on by the sagacious young lady, who had the novel satisfaction ,-f .accepting a proposal of marriage whilst whirling through masses of snowy clouds, two miles above the earth.

Drifting in an open boat, as castaways from a foundered vessel, in the surges of the Atlantic Ocean, a gentleman’ made love to his sole companion, a charming girl, whom ho had met on board the lost ship. She accepted the singular proposal, and they were subsequently saved by a passing steamer, and were happily wedded at the next port of call.